Mindy McCready's life didn't always seem sadder than a country song.
Before the legal drama, controversial courtships, suicide attempts and rehab stints, she was the sexy songstress who topped the charts and made headlines both for her hits and then-taboo navel ring. She was also engaged to a TV star.
But booze and prescription pills fueled a downward spiral that last week may have reached its most precarious point. Now her problems involve a 5-year-old boy – her son Zander.
On Tuesday, McCready, 36, removed Zander from the Florida home of her mother, Gayle Inge, who has custody of the boy, and the singer said she was willing to risk jail time over her actions. She also insisted that she was in no condition to travel after revealing she's seven-months pregnant with twins.
Friday night, police found McCready and Zander hiding in what was believed to be the singer's boyfriend's house in Arkansas. By Saturday, Zander was being returned to McCready's mother.
The recent events are the latest in a train wreck of troubles, and those who have known her are only shaking their heads.
"I hope this all works out for the best," Dennis Rodman, who appeared with her on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, tells PEOPLE. "I really enjoyed getting to know Mindy. She is a great person."
A Superstar in the Works
Born in Fort Meyers, Fla., McCready, 36, became famous in 1996 with her Multi-Platinum debut album Ten Thousand Angels and fashioned herself as a role model to her younger brother, telling PEOPLE in 1997 that she'd grill him about sex and call him "a pig" when he smoked cigarettes.
McCready – whose women's anthem "Guys Do It All the Time" was instantly a smash – suffered a hardship in 1998 when she split from her fiancé, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman star Dean Cain.
She seemed to bounce back a year later when her third album, I'm Not So Tough, got solid reviews, but it wouldn't last.
First Signs of Trouble
In 2004, she was charged with prescription drug fraud in 2004 after illegally obtaining the pain medicine OxyContin, and was sentenced to three years of supervised probation and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.
"It was a stupid thing to do," she later said, claiming her purchase was for a friend. "I am not a drug addict."
In 2005, the star was arrested again and charged with DUI and driving on a suspended license.
"I had not had a drink for four or five hours prior," she said. "I was driving home a drunk driver."
A few days later, her ex-boyfriend William McKnight was charged with attempted murder and aggravated burglary after allegedly breaking into her home and beating her up.
Covered in bruises, she testified against him in court, claiming he punched her, choked her and hit her head against a headboard.
"It's a bad situation," McCready told PEOPLE at the time. "I'm in a lot of pain, but I will get through it."
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