In the Black community, we don’t speak about. “So she was in the hospital dying and she’d probably had it for a while.
“What was so sad is we didn’t know she had cancer,” says Blige. The hardest part of processing her aunt’s death, she says, was the shock.
I’m a vessel and I can help, and I thank Hologic for coming to me, because it’s having a real effect on our culture.” If I can be a voice that heals broken hearts and helps people get through college and marriages, then I can absolutely be a loud voice when it comes to spreading awareness about the importance of mammograms. “Knowledge is power,” says Blige, “And I’m at the forefront of my craft and what I do. Launched in 2020 by BWHI and Hologic, it provides educational resources for patients, examining common barriers to early screening and generating awareness of the importance of annual mammograms among Black women. She’s now the spokeswoman for the P.O.W.E.R. That’s when Blige knew she had to start taking her wellness seriously.īlige has been an advocate for breast cancer awareness since 2020, when she began working with the Black Women’s Health Imperative to raise awareness that breast cancer has a 40 percent higher mortality rate among Black women than white women. One aspect of health that’s particularly important to Blige is breast cancer: Her aunt died of breast cancer when the singer was in her 30s. And that started with healthcare,” she says. But when I began to love myself, I started loving myself from the inside. I didn’t want to live - I didn’t like myself. “I wouldn’t be able to tell the story of my 20s, when I was suicidal. “I wouldn’t have a Super Bowl opportunity if I was not taking care of my health,” she tells KCM in a new interview. But Blige says she wouldn’t have reached this milestone if she hadn’t started prioritizing her health about two decades ago. (And that’s for a woman who we thought couldn’t get any better, especially after she released the multi-platinum album The Breakthrough in 2005.) As proof, the R&B superstar just booked the biggest stage on the planet: the Super Bowl Halftime Show, where she’ll perform alongside other legends like Snoop Dogg, Dr. Mary is also starring with Tom Cruise in the film “Rock of Ages,” which hits theaters next year.Mary J. The singer’s tenth studio album, “My Life II… The Journey Continues,” is due out Oct. But it was hard.”īlige has since seen brighter days, garnering a handful of Grammys for recent albums “The Breakthrough” (2005) and “Growing Pains” (2007). So I took responsibility and I cleaned up as much as I could. He doesn’t deserve for me to be some, you know, slum-bucket alcoholic. But, I care so much about him, I didn’t want to be just this alcoholic burden on him. I swear, I don’t know what death feels like but I felt like my spirit was trying to leave my body.”īlige credits her husband, Kendu Isaacs, with helping her sober up.
“So I was like, ‘this is it let’s go.’ I remember sitting on my bed. “It was bigger than me and it was definitely going to kill me. Blige Debuts New Song at 2011 BET Awards: Watchīlige later turned to alcohol and developed an addiction that almost ended her life.