If the reports about Mary J. Blige are true, that she had a physical altercation with her husband, sucker punching or slapping him in his grill and drawing blood, then the beloved “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul” must be apprehended. She must be booked, jailed, indicted, prosecuted and receive substantial legal penalties for her actions at the M2 UltraLounge in New York just before Christmas.
Mary J. should be sharing a cell with Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods’ soon-to-be ex-wife and sudden worldwide darling, whom most people and analysts believe assaulted Tiger because of his whorish ways.
There is no way that a woman, especially one with the stature of Mary J., can get away with assaulting a man in the aftermath of the Chris Brown-Rihanna debacle. That infamous assault took place in February, yet the public is still discussing, still debating, and still taking sides between Brown and Rihanna. And the regrettable episode has left Brown no better off than a perishable food item. He may never recover.
It’s a good thing that Mary J.’s defense arsenal includes competent janitors, who summarily mopped up this ugly episode by claiming that Mary J. only tried to intervene in a fight between her husband and brother. However, her publicist’s claims are disputed by the existence of an alleged videotape showing Mary J. raising her hand to her husband and apparently assaulting him in some fashion.
This may be, as sickening as it is to envision, the best thing to happen to Mary J.’s career in the eyes of her fans. Her holiday television concert last week was hideous. Her performance was trampled upon by her fans on Twitter and Facebook. She is so far away from her celebrated “What’s the 411?” days that she’d need a telescope and a compass to find it. Her fans believe that the “happy” Mary J. produces substandard, boring and uninspiring music unless it is born of drama and scandal in her life.
Whatever the case, let’s hope that Mary J. is what her handlers are saying she is: innocent. As Rihanna and Chris Brown have demonstrated by their sluggish post-assault album sales, there is little profit born of such divisive and destructive dilemmas.
–terry shropshire
