BY DARLENE DONLOE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

R&B singer Monica has already had more than her share of reality.

But this week, the award-winning songstress went one step further, pulled back the curtain and invited the world into her personal life with the debut of her new reality show, “Monica: Still Standing,” airing Tuesdays on BET.

In the show, Monica is raising her two young sons, and works on a new clothing line and album, “Still Standing.”

It was 1995 when Monica, born Monica Denise Arnold, first took the R&B world by storm with her highly successful debut album, “Miss Thang,” which produced four singles and made her the youngest recording act to ever have two consecutive chart-topping hits on the U.S. Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart.

What followed were four more albums for the Georgia native, “The Boy Is Mine” (also a duet with Brandy), “All Eyez on Me,” “After the Storm” and “The Makings of Me.”

However, along her musical journey, Monica, 29, hit some sour notes, including a decline in her popularity, the suicide of her boyfriend Jarvis “Knot” Weems, plus a reportedly tumultuous relationship with her former fiancée Corey “C-Murder” Miller, who was sentenced last August to life in prison for the 2002 second-degree murder of 16-year-old Steve Thomas.

With her latest CD “Still Standing” and her new reality show, Monica, who has also acted on television and in several films, is out to prove she’s a survivor. The L.A. Watts Times caught up with the songstress in Pasadena.

LAWT: Was there anything that was off limits for the cameras?

M: Nothing was off limits to the camera. James (DuBose, executive producer) and I established a relationship, and I was very open about the fact that my kids came first. If that meant that I sacrificed my career, I was fine with that. I made it very clear that things would be happening within my family. My father was very sick. He was trying to beat prostate cancer. I lost a lot of people in the midst of just us doing what we had to do.

And I just let him know that when those things happen, I would be going where the situation was. So if there was something scripted, I would be walking away. And he basically explained to me that this won’t be a scripted show. And once he explained to me that that’s how the show would be, I was totally comfortable.

LAWT: In a clip of the show, someone says, “You’ve got to trust me.” And you say, “Just like I’ve trusted other people?” Did you have any trepidation about going into a show when you’ve had these issues in the past?

M: It was very scary stepping into the type of situation that would expose all that takes place before the album is actually finished, on top of the fact that it exposes everything personally.

But I think that there are so many kids now that are aspiring to do exactly what I’ve done. My first record was recorded when I was 12. And I think that they don’t know exactly what it takes and what it’s like to try to juggle both lives. The hardest part is that — trusting people before; when I say that, that means that in picking songs, picking singles, a lot of times it happens without the artist.

So you’ll see in the show me finding ways to take charge of what’s actually happening and pick the records again myself, like I was allowed to the first four albums when I was much younger and music was just about a feeling. So we try to get that back. It creates a lot of friction between me and some of the people that I work with. But I think it’s well worth it because the music is ultimately for the fans.

LAWT: When you were younger you were able to choose and control your albums, then you weren’t. What did you do to get control again?

M: Fight. Fight a lot. I just fought for what I knew was right and what I thought the audience would appreciate.

LAWT: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from the beginning of your career to now?

M: My biggest lesson from beginning to now is, a lot of people believe in a lot of things, but I trust God and I believe in Him fully and wholeheartedly. And He’s allowed me to step out of my past and into my purpose and recognize that who I used to be is not who I am anymore, and there’s reasoning for that.

“Monica: Still Standing” airs at 10 p.m., Tuesday on BET.