MARY J. BLIGE – On Being Molested As A Child, And Drink & Drugs Hell!

 

Grammy Award-winning singer Mary J. Blige fought back tears as she revealed her turbulent past with drugs and alcohol and recalling the time she was molested as a child, as part of a Behind The Music Tv special!

 

The Vh1 documentary, which aired in the U.S. on Sunday night (24th July, 2011), the Family Affair singer spoke about her her previous battles with substance abuse and booze, revealing a once casual cocaine use became a full-blown addiction as her romance with Jodeci star K-Ci Hailey began to unravel in the mid-1990s. She also recalled of the time when she felt “worthless”, after being molested at the mere age of five.
 

Speaking about the sexual abuse, she said:

“When I was five years old I was molested and just, you know. I remember feeling, literally right before it happened, I just could not believe that this person was going to do this to me.

“That thing followed me all my life. The shame of thinking my molestation was my fault.

“It led me to believe I wasn’t worth anything.”

 

Blige also described about the time when she finally managed to wean herself off drugs, only to have it replaced with a dependence on alcohol.
 

Recalling the nightmare, she said:

“I remember going down the wrong way on the Fdr Drive (in New York)… I didn’t realise this is how messed up we were.

“(I was) driving this way, the traffic’s coming this way. I remember crashing my car into a wall, spinned (sic) out (of control), and my girlfriend was on the other side just screaming.

“I really didn’t care about myself; I was borderline suicidal… I was like the walking dead; just smoking and drinking and hanging.”

 

The awful feeling returned in 1999 when the singer turned to alcohol as a way of numbing the darkness in her personal life.
 

She adds:

“I was subliminally just trying to get outta here. I was trying to drink the problems away and I remember having Seagram’s gin sponsor our tour – and I was drinking every single day.

“I don’t know what death feels like but I felt like my spirit was trying to leave my body.”

 

It was here when she turned to religion for someone to help her out of the nasty place she was in, and she received a call soon after from a producer she had been working with, Kendu Isaacs, who proceeded to let her know he thought she was wasting her life and her talent. Call it coincidental, but this was seen as the main turning point as it was the first time anyone had really challenged her over the bad decisions she was making.
 

Crediting both a mixture of prayer and Isaacs for helping her out of the rut, she says:

“When I stopped drinking, it was willpower.

“It was prayer. It was really hard. But most of all, I cared so much about [Kendu], I didn’t wanna be just this alcoholic burden on him… I took responsibility and I cleaned up as much as I could.”

 

Blige also pays owes a lot to Sean “Diddy” Combs, as she adds:

“If it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t have made it this far in my career, because he pushed me, challenged me to challenge myself.”

 

It’s a shame when we lose such wonderful talents to the awful addictions of drugs and booze, and all too often they probably don’t have people to put them in their place. Luckily for Blige, she did and now she can look at the shadow she once was and look towards the future.

Good luck to her!