Los Angeles Confidential‘s latest feature on Mary J. Blige entitled “Regal And Real” couldn’t be more fitting. The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, who is preparing for role in Lifetime Network’s Betty and Coretta, had no reservations while opening up about her past drug abuse, the molestation as a child and her refusal to enter rehab during her toughest times.
Throughout it all, the 41-year-old industry vet says she put her trust in God and never looked back.
Pop the top to reveal more stunning shots of MJB– sporting fashions by Hervé Léger, Rafael Cennamo and more– and several excerpts from the candid interview…
Photos courtesy of Los Angeles Confidential
On saying no to her destructive drinking habits…
“What I did was I chose to learn how to drink socially and it didn’t work. The test comes when you have to decide whether you’re drinking to be social or drinking to cover up something again. To cover up depression. To cover up guilt. Shame. Abandonment. All of that, man. Once I realized, “There you go again,” I had to stop. Whitney Houston’s death really affected me. Her death is another reason I stopped. I really do think I’m done. I looked at how that woman could not perform anymore.”
On refusing rehab…
“I don’t know why. But I didn’t want to go to rehab. I believe that anything man himself can do for me, God can do for me in a greater way. I decided to pray and to seek God on my own. I just stayed in The Word. And it worked.”
On being molested as a child…
“I was 5. Mmmm … yes. I was 5. I don’t want to go into the details. It’s something that hurt me really bad. I’m still the same way. When I open up to trust you, I trust you wholeheartedly. And then when you betray that trust, it closes me up.“
On her dark past that led to drug abuse…
“[...] That dark moment. That one dark moment. It only happened once, but after that there was so much else in my childhood that happened. So many dark moments—which all added up and that’s what sprung on the drug addiction, trying to numb it all with the drugs. The depression. The lack of love for myself. The lack of people loving you around you. The abandonment issues. Daddy not being there all the time. Mommy not knowing how to handle it all. Although she loves you, she abandons you at some point too. I’m not saying that to be down on my mom. She was just a cursed woman as well. There have been so many other dark moments that I can’t even talk about. I have given the world so much and even in the middle of all that stuff there has been so much shit going on. It was all those tributaries that gave me such deep soul. But it is those same things that now have taught me how to be strong. In the past those were the same things that were killing me. But I made it out. I made it out.”
On moving forward, much like Betty Shabazz…
“You have to move forward. If Betty had not moved forward, Malcolm X would have died and that would have been it. I didn’t even realize that she and Coretta had been friends. Women never get a chance to have their stories told when there are important men involved. That’s what drew me to the part.”
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