Mary J Blige: I didn’t know how to be in love with someone

Mary J Blige has revealed that she turned to drugs and alcohol to help cope with the memory of her difficult childhood but it made things worse because she got into unsuitable relationships - including a boyfriend that held a gun to her head.

She revealed recently: “The relationship I was in then was so terrible, I had a gun to my face.”

“At that point, I said to myself, ‘There’s something wrong with me. Guys don’t want to stick around because they are ashamed of me.’ Ouch! That gives me the chills right now!”

She added that when she met the man that became her husband, Kendu Issacs, she didn’t know how to behave around him because of all her previous bad experiences: “[I treated him] so badly for a while, because I’d never experienced real love before. I was suspicious. It seemed too good to be true.”

“I remember lying on the bed with my head on his chest. I decided to stop drinking that night and forgive all the people who had hurt me and to forgive and love myself, because I loved him and I wanted to be true.”