{"id":283687,"date":"2021-06-25T14:23:44","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T11:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/mary-j-blige-discusses-depression-addiction-in-my-life-doc\/"},"modified":"2021-06-25T14:23:44","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T11:23:44","slug":"mary-j-blige-discusses-depression-addiction-in-my-life-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/mary-j-blige-discusses-depression-addiction-in-my-life-doc\/","title":{"rendered":"#Mary J. Blige discusses depression, addiction in ‘My Life’ doc"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Mary J. Blige discusses depression, addiction in ‘My Life’ doc<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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For Mary J. Blige, making her 1994 masterpiece \u201cMy Life\u201d<\/a> was about much more than selling records \u2014 it was about saving her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was singing for my life literally,\u201d says the 50-year-old singer in the new documentary \u201cMary J. Blige\u2019s My Life,\u201d which premieres Friday on Amazon Prime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was, like, a turning point. This was a decision I had to make to either live or die. Most of the times I was just depressed and didn\u2019t want to live because I didn\u2019t love myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Substance abuse, an abusive relationship with former Jodeci crooner K-Ci Hailey and depression formed a toxic cocktail that threatened to dethrone \u2014 and destroy \u2014 the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul after her groundbreaking debut, 1992\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s the 411?\u201d<\/p>\n

After first turning to substance abuse as a teenager enduring a tough upbringing in the Yonkers projects \u2014 \u201cWe would go to the pier, and we would drink our pain away\u201d \u2014 Blige used drugs and alcohol to cope with her anxiety after suddenly going from the streets to stardom.<\/p>\n

\"Mary
Mary J. Blige poured her real-life pain into her classic \u201cMy Life.\u201d<\/figcaption>
Redferns<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In fact, her newfound fame was a kind of monster. \u201cSo I\u2019m scared to death of myself,\u201d she says. \u201cSo [I\u2019ll do] whatever it takes for me to be comfortable \u2014 if I need to drink some more, if I need to do some more coke, whatever I need to do to loosen up and try to take this in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite hits such as \u201cYou Remind Me,\u201d<\/a> \u201cReal Love\u201d and \u201cReminisce,\u201d<\/a> Blige says, \u201cI couldn\u2019t even enjoy what was going on. I couldn\u2019t even enjoy my success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mary
Mary J. Blige celebrated the 25th anniversary of \u201cMy Life\u201d at the 2019 Essence Festival.<\/figcaption>
FilmMagic<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her turbulent romance with Hailey \u2014 whose Jodeci was one of the hottest groups in R&B at the time\u00a0\u2014\u00a0only added to her personal drama. \u201cI loved him, but neither one of us could handle the success of our lives,\u201d she says. \u201cSo it became very dark, the whole thing, and abusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Blige, it was continuing a cycle of abuse. \u201cI\u2019ve had to physically fight for my life a lot,\u201d she says. \u201cMy mom had to suffer a lot of physical abuse as well so, as a little girl, I saw her, this little woman, fighting. So when it all started to happ<\/a>en to me, all I could think about was my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mary
Mary J. Blige struggled with newfound fame after her \u201990s breakthrough.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Still, she struggled with leaving that abusive relationship. \u201cIt\u2019s not simple or black and white to just walk out the door when you\u2019re just beyond insecure because you think that this is the best that you can get,\u201d says Blige. \u201cI will never understand why we stay so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

That relationship also sent her into a deep depression<\/a>. \u201cIt was just one big giant hole of darkness,\u201d says Blige, adding that the \u201csnowball effect\u201d of it all triggered some childhood trauma, including being molested as a 5-year-old girl. \u201cThat depression from that relationship rewinded life and brought back a whole bunch of other stuff that I\u2019d never dealt with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mary
Mary J. Blige performed at the BET Experience in Los Angeles in 2019.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And with no self-love, her behavior became self-destructive: \u201cI was just trying to drink my life away, take drugs till I die, whatever it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Blige poured all of that pain into \u201cMy Life\u201d classics such as \u201cBe Happy,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m Goin\u2019 Down\u201d and the title track<\/a> alongside producer and executive producer Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs<\/a> (back when he was \u201cPuffy\u201d), who also served as executive producer of the documentary. \u201cWe made a connection through the pain,\u201d says Combs, who was dealing with his own heartache after his breakup with stylist Misa Hylton<\/a>. \u201cFrom that point on, we was like, \u2018F\u2014k that, we gon\u2019 bring the pain!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

No doubt, \u201cMy Life\u201d helped Blige to heal and eventually be at peace with herself. And 27 years later, she says, \u201cThe sadness in that album, it\u2019s very triumphant now.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Mary J. Blige discusses depression, addiction in ‘My Life’ doc” For Mary J. Blige, making her 1994 masterpiece \u201cMy Life\u201d was about much more than selling records \u2014 it was about saving her life. \u201cI was singing for my life literally,\u201d says the 50-year-old singer in the new documentary \u201cMary J. Blige\u2019s My Life,\u201d which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":283688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/mary-j-blige-current-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[110313,1394,73745,60770,39579,73325,80074],"class_list":["post-283687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-6-25-21","tag-amazon-prime","tag-depression","tag-mary-j-blige","tag-music","tag-music-documentaries","tag-sean-combs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}