let me tell you about the worst interview situation I ever had worst except for the time when Suge Knight practically kidnapped me and threatened to beat me up but that’s a story for another day this is a story about Miss Mary J Blige 1994 which she was hot like fish grease because of her sophomore album My Life The New York Times arranged for me to go hang out with her spend a day with her where we would go and meet in Manhattan and go to the Schlobaum projects where she grew up successful singer goes back home The lead single on that album was Be Happy but deep down Mary was not happy that was the summer when Mary got into a fight with dream hampton when they when she was doing a story for vibe I got it worse at this point young Mary was still new to the industry and shy and not very trusting and she could be quick tempered it would be a long day We met in Manhattan and got in a limo with a bunch of people from the label and she was quiet and shy so I said hi but she wasn’t really responding to my conversation I tried to ask her a few questions and she kind of tried to ignore me and just started talking to her friend and paying attention to her not paying attention to me I said okay fine give her time to warm up let her be by herself she’ll come back to me later we went up in the projects saw her mom but moments after she arrived like everybody in the project knew she was there so the hallways are filled with people who are excited to see her she said hi to some people but this kind of freaked her out so she kind of ran back to the limo and pulled in a bunch of her friends like 10 of her friends to like sit in the limo and have big fun I immediately knew this is a great scene for my story this could be the opening seed for the story Mary in her limo hanging out with her friends so as the friends finish piling in I start to walk into the limo and Mary looks at me and points a finger at me and says no you can’t come in okay so I stood outside with the label people as Mary and her friends hung out in the limo drinking and smoking and laughing for about half an hour I knew a great scene was happening in there and I wasn’t able to see it but say c’est la vie the little party finally ended and her crew filed out and the label people started piling back in and I get in and Mary looks at me and says don’t speak to me for the rest of the day what what what had I done what we’ve barely spoken the whole day I don’t know what I don’t know why she was so mad at me I think she took one look at me and said he’s not my kind of person but her aggressive statement shook the vibe in the limo and like everyone was silent so the entire 45 minute ride back to Manhattan was in silence when we got to 55th Street and 10th Avenue like the edge of Manhattan not really near anything kind of a sketchy area she told the driver to stop and she pointed at me and said get out I guess I should have been grateful for her telling him to stop the car cause the vibe was kinda like you’re getting out now if we have to kick you out and you just fall out the door anyway when the label heard what had happened they were mortified and scared that I was going to write a horrible article about her of course I did not cause the journalist has to put themselves second I can’t write a mean or negative article because you are mean to me you are a superstar who people care about deeply they wanna know about who she is not about how I personally feel about her so I had to put my personal hurt and sense of being offended aside and just write about her but I never forgot what happened Mary