Mary J. Blige Speaks On The 'New Mary' & Maya Angelou

Mary J. Blige is opening up about her private progress and transformation whereas paying homage to the late Maya Angelou.

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Mary J. Blige Speaks On Her Personal Development

The 52-year-old singer sat down for an unique interview with Glamour revealed on Wednesday, November 1. During the dialog, Blige stated she’s not an “overnight success.”

Additionally, she added that followers are witnessing a “new” her.

“This is not an overnight success,” Blige defined. “This is not an easy thing, this new me, this new Mary. This is hard work.”

The singer seemingly defined that upkeeping the “new Mary” is “hard work” due to all she’s been by way of.

“When you’re happy and you’re strong, and you’ve been…[as] miserable as I’ve been in life and went through as much hell, it’s easy to revert back to the residue,” the 52-year-old shared. “It’s easy to revert back to the past because that’s what you knew. Because you know the pain of the past will always try to pull you back.”

During the interview, Blige recounted adjusting to the hardships of rising up within the Schlobohm Houses in Yonkers, New York, together with her mom and sister after being raised by her grandparents in Richmond Hill, Georgia.

In addition to coping with her guardian’s divorce, Blige would even have to deal with the trauma of “childhood sexual abuse.” In maturity, Blige would marry her former supervisor, Kendu Isaacs, in 2003.

However, throughout the marriage, Blige discovered that Isaacs allegedly mishandled her funds and she or he owed the IRS “so much money” she thought she’d by no means “get out of debt.”

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The pair would in the end divorce in 2018.

The Singer Shares How Maya Angelou Inspired Her To Feel Like A “Phenomenal Woman”

Elsewhere throughout the dialog with Glamour, Blige additionally shared how the late poet Maya Angelou impressed her to view herself as a “phenomenal woman.”

“She always spoke about a phenomenal woman,” Blige defined. “I had never in my life even been able to look at myself as a great woman, but now I look at myself as a phenomenal woman, and I believe that it’s because of things that Maya Angelou did for us, and how she spoke about women.”

Additionally, Blige credited her mom for “never” letting “herself go” regardless of her private ordeals.

“She was single and hurting and everything, but she never let herself go,” the singer defined. “I never saw my mother looking bad. She took care of her skin day and night, she took care of her body, she took care of her mind, and she never let us see her in no kind of pain, you know? We never saw that. We always saw her keep herself beautiful.”

As the interview continued, Blige defined that she put Angelou’s inspiration to work by “collecting herself.”

“Well, that phenomenal woman thing just started happening,” the 52-year-old shared. “When I was first in the music business, I was not this woman who thinks she’s phenomenal. I learned to collect myself, the good, the bad, the ugly. Everything about me. [I was like,] Gosh, it hurts to look at all the things that are not right with me, but it’s me. And if I can’t look at it, I can’t fix it.”

Moving ahead, Blige plans to encourage others to embrace change by way of her music, she says.

“I want to tell stories of progress and going through the process of getting better, of going through the pain of change,” Blige advised Glamour. “Because change is painful. But being stuck and stagnant is painful as well.”