Mary J Blige has spoken candidly about the subject of motherhood, and why she does not want to have children.
The singer, 51, discussed the topic during an interview with E! Daily Pop after she was asked whether she thinks she’ll ever have regrets over not having children. In response, Blige said: “Oh I’m not there yet.”
“I’m not there yet, so I’m good,” she said, before adding: “I have nieces and nephews forever and I’m always watching how people are scrambling around for babysitters. I don’t want to go through that.”
According to Blige, who recently performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, she also likes her “freedom,” and being able to do whatever she wants when she wants without having to worry about taking care of another person.
“I like my freedom. I like being able to get up and go and move and do what I want to do. I don’t want to have to tend to someone all the time,” she explained. “I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”
While Blige does not have children of her own, she was previously a stepmother to her ex-husband Kendu Isaacs’ three children, Briana, Jordan and Nas. The couple were married from 2003 until 2018.
In 2007, the R&B singer reflected on her role as a stepmother during an interview with Redbook, during which she said that she loved her stepchildren “so much” and discussed what the children called her.
“I’ve been a stepmother for three years now and I love them so much,” she said, adding: “They would ask me questions like: ‘What do we call you?’ I said: ‘Call me Mary, call me what you want. You don’t have to call me Mommy until you’re ready.’”
However, Blige previously discussed the idea of having children of her own during an interview with People in 2009, where she revealed that she didn’t have plans to foster or adopt as she didn’t think it would be fair to the children.
“I don’t think I’ll do foster care or adopt, to be quite honest,” she said at the time. “I barely have time for my own children. To adopt more children and not have time for them, that [would be] poor parenting on my [part].”
Blige has also been transparent about her divorce, which she sang about in her album Good Morning Gorgeous, with the singer telling the New York Times Magazine that she thinks her fans care more about relating to the pain she went through and less about the details.
“I don’t think people care about the details too much. They just care about the part that they can relate to directly with you. ‘Me too, girl, me too.’ They don’t even care about how you got on that floor. They just know that you were down there - with them. I just give them enough to say: ‘Me, too. I’m hurting too,’’ she said.
