Mary J. Bligehas released 15 studio albums (and sold more than 100 million of them). She’s returning to the third season of the Starz seriesPower Book II: Ghostnext month.Now 52and into her fourth decade in the music business, she arrives on the PEOPLE photo shoot set amid a flurry of activity. She’s ready. “I’ve been doing this for a minute,” she says. “I’m no rookie.”
But she says her workisfeeling a little different today. “I can receive all the gifts,” she says, referring to six Grammy nominations for her new albumGood Morning Gorgeous,receiving the Billboard Music Icon Awardlast year, her Emmy-winningperformance at last year’s Super Bowl, and her pair of Oscar nominations a few years ago. She’s operating on all cylinders. She’s in her prime. Whatever you want to call it, she’s there. But here’s the important part: Sheknowsit.
“I can accept it all with humility and with confidence because I’ve been working so hard all my life — really, really hard. But I wasn’t able to see the good things until I really got my head together and my life together.”
Mary J. Blige.AB + DM
Her daily routine helped with that. Every morning when she awakes, she looks in the mirror. She says to herself, “Good morning, gorgeous.” (Yes, the title track of her album is about this ritual.)
“Sometimes my eyes are all closed up,” she says. “But I strain to see myself. It’s not about the vanity of it, it’s about how we’re strengthened. no one can love me like me.Nobodycan.”
For the Grammy-winning singer and Oscar-nominated actress, this has become more than a daily ritual — it’s a form of meditation. “I do it in my prayer time. There’s no makeup, no nominations for an award. It’s just me and God. And the beauty of being able to say, “I appreciate my life.” To look in the mirror, my eyes are half closed, and say something to myself that I never even believed.”
Considering she’s music royalty, that might be hard to believe. Blige is the Queen of Hip Hop Soul, after all. A title given because she created the genre — blending hip hop and R&B — something she says she’s receiving credit for now.
For more on PEOPLE’s cover story with Mary J. Blige, listen below to our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day.
She’s laid it all out there, from suffering from substance abuse and heartbreak to struggling through recovery from both. Now single, she says she’s turned yet another corner. “Mary J. Blige is happy. Happy with herself and happy with her life.” And she’s got a new focus: “me.”
“I didn’t care about myself,” she says. “I didn’t love myself. You get what you’re giving yourself. So now that I’m giving to myself, I’m getting itall.”
For more from PEOPLE’s cover story on Mary J. Blige, pick up the latest issue, on newsstands everywhere Friday.
source: people.com
