MARY J BLIGE- ‘I pushed through hell'

THE R’N’B QUEEN AND STAR OF A REVEALING NEW DOCUMENTARY SHARES HER STORY OF TRAUMA, HEARTBREAK AND SURVIVAL

Throughout her threedecade career, pain has often been Mary J Blige’s greatest muse. It gave her a voice that provided an R’n’B soundtrack for the broken-hearted, via big pop, hip-hop and soul hits like ‘Real Love’, ‘Not Gon’ Cry’ and ‘No More Drama’. Although her songs gave fans years of entertainment, Blige, 50, sees her talent as a vessel to a deeper calling. “I’m here to go through the pain so somebody else can grow,” she tells WHO’s sister publication People magazine over Zoom from New York City. “That’s been my job since I was 5 years old.”

She’s now revealing more about the root of the pain that powers her music in her new Amazon Studios documentary My Life, which commemorates her 1994 sophomore album of the same name. In it Blige digs deep into a life that has been rife with turmoil and talks about a brutal sexual assault she suffered when she was just a child and the physically and verbally abusive relationships she’s endured as an adult. “It took me some time to even want to do this documentary,” she says. “But you have to go back to where the trauma came from, and I felt like it’s time to do that.”

Blige still carries physical evidence of her past pain. Although her candid documentary offers a rare glimpse into her private world, she refuses to discuss the distinctive scar under her left eye or offer any details on how she got it. “It’s nobody’s business,” she says. “I can’t. Some things you just can’t. It was that tragic – you just can’t.”