I was a fan since 1993 but too young to understand/know about the charts and her success. That was the great thing about being a kid, it was pure about the music.
No access to the internet, a random special on TV was all I ever saw of her.
When she was all over the news in 2001 with her "fall from grace" that's when I only started to realize how huge she had been, and by the time WBT came out I had just started to really find out about her chart history and then she was smashing again with TEOM.