I see it more along the lines of leaving before his mother died. If his mother died, that would once again take him down the dark side. No longer being a Jedi, Padme would have dumped him for Mace Windu.
That would deeply hurt Ani, but being a folk superstar, he would have drowned his sorrows in groupies and quickly gotten over it. From there he would have used his Jedi acrobatic skills and joined Cirque Du Solarium and done sell out live shows with them.
After the Empire was formed and the Emperor assassinated rebel Padme, Ani was emotionally down again... But the Emperor opened up the Death Star's arena for mobile concerts across the galaxy, and so they made up. The Emperor used Ani to shamelessly promote the "good" of the Empire and gloss over its atrocities.
(Hmm... maybe I've strayed a little too far from the original story.)