NEW YORK – When the "Mickey Mouse Club" ended in 1995, most of Jennifer McGill's co-stars immediately launched careers in Hollywood. McGill, instead, jetted off to New York to start college.
McGill's choice to take a break from Hollywood was a conscious one. The child star did not think she was ready for the entertainment industry after experiencing a taste of fame at a very young age.
Now 39, McGill is releasing her first full-length debut solo album "Unbreakable," inspired by her faith.
"I just needed to grow up and grow wiser in order to be the artist I think I was meant to be," McGill told Fox News. "I think that it was meant to be that now is the time that my debut album is being released. I think I would have been chewed up and spit out in my 20s."
After college, McGill's life hit a rough patch when her mother died when the singer was 24-years-old. The death of her mother sent McGill in a downward spiral and away from the church she grew up in.
"When my mother was gone, I felt extremely lost," she told us. "I think I'd lost my joy."
Things took a turn for the worse when McGill found herself married to a married man.
"When I was 30 -- I'll say this crazy story -- I got into a relationship when I was at my most isolated and when I wasn't taking any advice from God where I ended up marrying a man who was married to somebody else," she revealed.
McGill said went to a court to have the marriage annulled after discovering her husband was still legally married to another woman.
"Not a lot of people get a second chance," she said. "If you're talking about a moment of rebirth and a moment of a huge mistake where I understood that I had made so many choices that had nothing to do with God's purpose for my life that was the moment."
McGill said it was in that moment that she found her faith again.
"I got on my knees and I said, 'Lord, I don't have anything of yours in my life anymore'...I asked Him to release me from all of these mistakes and bring me to a place where I could be useful to Him."
McGill said it was this mistake, among others that has inspired her new music.
"This album is born from that beginning, that rebirth," she shared. "I'm here to say it's not a lost cause, no matter how far you've slipped...my music is here to inspire."
Watch the exclusive debut of McGill's music video for her new single "Unbreakable" above.
Faith & Fame is a regular column exploring how a strong belief system helps some performers navigate the pitfalls of the entertainment industry.