Singer Mary J. Blige recently opened up about a highly discussed topic in the season: loneliness during the holidays. The singer sat down with Taraji P. Henson on her show “Peace of Mind With Taraji,” to talk about the struggles of being single in the midst of the holiday season.
“It gets lonely and it gets sad, but I just gotta thug this out until something excellent comes along,” said Blige in the clip. “I don’t know when that’s gonna happen. But, I’d rather be by myself than to keep making the same mistakes over and over again.”
The “Mudbound” actress said she wasn’t going to let the low points stop her from practicing some much-needed self-care, and that she would always keep herself open to love, if it comes into her life again.
“I’m going to be patient and sift through this thing and love on me right now. I’m not gonna deprive myself of living. I’m not gonna deprive myself of romance, if it ever shows up.”
Blige and her ex-husband Kendu Isaacs were able to finalize their turbulent divorce settlement in 2018, two years after announcing that they were separating after 13 years of marriage.
She originally filed for divorce from him in 2016, accusing him of misappropriating more than $400,000 of her money reportedly on his mistress.
While promoting her film “Mudbound” in 2017, she called out Isaacs for coming after her money.
“I thought someone loved me, right? Turns out, he was a con artist and he didn’t, and now he’s coming after me for all my money,” she said. “When you come out of something like that, you realize you were never the one. There was someone else that was his queen. I got played. I got suckered. I have to keep smiling and keep my spirits up because this is designed to kill me.”
After a judge ordered Blige to pay $30,000 a month in spousal support, Isaacs sought an increase to $65,000, due to the “divorce songs” from her 13th studio album, “Strength of a Woman,” which largely dealt with the dissolution of her marriage, according to The Blast. Because of her “trashing him in the press,” Isaacs, her former manager, claimed he could no longer find work and demanded she compensate him for his losses. The judge ended up rejecting the request.
Blige once credited Isaacs with being the catalyst for her prevailing over a drug and alcohol addiction, however, in 2019, she told SELF Magazine “he did not deserve that credit.”
“When I look back, I see that we all want what we want. And we want it to be the way we want it to be,” she said. “I wanted a savior. I’d been hurting so long, and so much, and so bad.”
