Belinda Davids tried to live the American dream in Los Angeles. But it wasn't until she returned home in 2011 that she got her big break, which catapulted her from being a singer in a bar to selling out venues across the world.
The Port Elizabeth-born singer sings Whitney Houston's songs in an international tribute show, The Greatest Love of All: The Whitney Houston Show.
The new South African leg of the show starts on June 21 at Emperors Palace in Johannesburg. It will be the only South African run, and goes on until 2019.
Davids moved to Hollywood in 2001 hoping to get a break. After years of auditions and six months as a secretary, it came in 2008 with a permanent singing job at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. American singer-songwriter Keyshia Cole spotted her and signed her as a back-up singer for her US tour.
Her second break came after she moved back to South Africa and settled in Cape Town. The following year, she was cast as the lead in The Whitney Houston Show, beating 15,000 others in a worldwide audition.
"I didn't plan to take this on, it just happened to come up. I've been a struggling artist my whole life. There was a stage when I was a secretary at a real estate agency. This is my passion," Davids said.
The 41-year-old wowed audiences at the Apollo Theater in New York last year. After her performance of Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, Davids received a standing ovation.
"I remember very little of the Apollo performance; I was so engaged and focused on making the performance perfect. [Houston] recorded Greatest Love of All on that stage, so to get to perform it was another tick off my bucket list," she said.
Davids's love for Houston's music started when she was eight. She recalls hearing Houston's duet with Teddy Pendergrass, Hold Me, one of the singer's 1985 classics."I fell in love with the purity in her voice. I had never connected with a song like that," Davids said.
Being a tribute artist isn't all glitz and glamour, and Davids was able to get a "glimpse" of what the American songstress went through. On the UK leg of the international tour, a fan held her in a headlock and would not let go.
But her biggest challenge will be to become a performer in her own right, rather than just a tribute singer doing cover songs.
"People only see Whitney Houston when they see me. I don't mind, she was the greatest singer we've ever known. But at some point I want the world to see me as Belinda Davids."
She started the show with a sold-out six-week season in Johannesburg in 2013 and went on to perform to audiences across the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Dubai and North America...