There’s no holding back Mary J. Blige. Despite her very public divorce, the singer is focusing her energy on her 13th album, Strength of a Woman, which is set to drop on April 28. While on her promo run in New York City, Blige stopped by Power 105.1’s The Angie Martinez Show for an interview. During her candid conversation with host Angie Martinez, Blige opened up about her divorce, her new album, teaming with Kanye West and much more.
Check out excerpts from Blige’s interview with Martinez below:
On why she’s getting a divorce: The overwhelming disrespect. Just disrespect, you’re too familiar, you’re way too familiar and you’re disrespecting me and I know, I can sense that I’m not what you want anymore. Because now you start throwing questions around like “ok why you don’t cook?” I haven’t been cooking. “Why you don’t wear your hair like that?” I never wore my hair like this before what’s up with you? You know, so you start to realize that this man doesn’t want you and he’s just gone all the time and you’re by yourself in the relationship. You realize you’re just by yourself in the relationship and you’re just suffering through it. Now it’s time to do some investigating.
On how she feels about her husband’s spousal support request: He has the power to make it all go away if he just would stop demanding what he’s demanding. And that’s not fair to me because he doesn’t deserve what he’s demanding. It’s not fair that you know, why do I have to pay you and why do you think you deserve this amount of money? Why you think you deserve any money? You know? You didn’t make me. You’re not God. So I have to pay you? Being my husband and being my manager you say you “helped” me and yeah you helped, but you didn’t build me and this career I was Mary J. Blige before I even met you. So that’s not fair of you. And this is the sickness.
On collaborating with Kanye West: I’m a fan of Kanye I’ve always love Kanye and wanted to work with Kanye. So, I reached out to his manager and got a number on him and began to text him about how I really wanted him and I knew him, we speak you know we see each other but it’s never like “hey Kanye would you do a record with me?” but I knew I needed him on “Love Yourself.” So, texting him back and forth to the point where he was like “you know why don’t you come over and we sit and talk and you know tell me what you want” and the rest is history you know, he’s Kanye. He’s creative.
On her new album Strength of a Woman: It is I mean on the “My Life” album when I was going through everything I was going through and it was dark, it was the first time I ever really spoke personally and said “help me.” Now I’m saying “you know what, I’m a little pissed right now and hurt and all of that, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m human and this is hard. This is a lot to deal with.” So, this album just embodies what I’m dealing with. What I have to deal with, every five minutes there’s something going on that makes me want to choke somebody. It’s really really hard you know, but then there’s moment when I go spend time with you and we hang out for our birthdays and it’s the most beautiful time.
Watch Mary J. Blige’s interview with Angie Martinez below.
