MARY J BLIGE SPEAKS ON BURGER KING CONTROVERSY

Mary J. Blige probably cringes every time she hears that phrase, or anything involving, ‘Crispy Chicken. Fresh Lettuce. Three Cheeses. Ranch Dressing’ for that matter. Earlier this year, she became the butt of many jokes when Burger King released a commercial with Mary singing a jingle about their new Chicken Wraps. Aside from a statement, released shortly after the video was pulled from the internet, Mary has kept mute about the actual controversy surrounding the video as well as her decision to do it.

Yesterday, she dropped by The Angie Martinez show at Hot 97, and finally cleared the air on her decision to do the commercial as well as how she was affected by all of the negative reactions. She admitted to Angie that she has been quiet about it for months because everyone was crucifying her and it broke her heart. She also revealed that the commercial was very different than what was sold to her by Burger King and she says that the infamous ‘What’s in a Chicken Wrap’ line was a question she was actually asking during filming, because she forgot the words. Long story short, she thought this was an amazing branding opportunity but Burger King did her kind of dirty.

On her first reaction to the Burger King commercial
I went online to listen to the remix I did with Fat Joe and I’m looking for that and all I see is Burger King, chicken, buffoonery and I’m like, “What the heck?” It just broke my heart that people were going crazy and I understand the laughter and the jokes that was happening. That’s all good! You’re supposed to do that when something like that happens . It made people’s website [hits] go up. It made people get more ratings on their radio stations. Cool. Whatever. Hehe Haha, but the thing that hurt me is when people were just starting to say vicious and negative things that didn’t even have nothing to do with that. What it did was expose everyone and everything that was in my life and it showed me who my friends are.
When I saw it, it hurt me so bad. It looked like soft porn. On the part where it says “What’s in the chicken wrap?” How about this, I was asking them a question for real. I couldn’t remember the words so I was like, “What’s in the chicken warp?” They sped it up and made me look ridiculous. It was like I wanted to crawl under the bed. It was crazy how I felt, you don’t even know. I had to go to the airport the next day when it was hot off the press. It was a mistake! People look at it as a mistake but I did it because I thought it was something that wouldn’t come out like that.
On what she expected from the commercial
It was sold to us that I would be shot in an iconic way and it was going to be great so I was looking for someone to have mercy but no one had mercy and it’s cool. It was a learning experience.
On how the negative comments affected her
It hurt my feelings. It crushed me for like two days but after those two days I got up and I kept going. Andre Harrell, my real family members stood up for me but all those fair-weather friends, and suckas that were online poppin’ junk. People were jumping out saying “Uh-Oh, I didn’t do that, not me.” It’s like who asked you? And that’s the type of stuff that hurt my feelings so bad and I want to apologize to everyone that was offended or thought that I would do something so disrespectful to our culture. I would never do anything like that purposely. I thought I was doing something right so forgive me and now I’m moving on.
On if she felt as the actual commercial was a mistake
Now I feel like I did. I didn’t know I was making one honestly. First of all, as a kid I always wanted to do something like a Burger King commercial, or ‘have it your way’ or even a McDonald’s commercial. When we were kids, my father, who is a musician wrote us a jingle to McDonalds, which is crazy. At the end of the day, it’s something that I always wanted to do and dreamed about and that’s why I did it. No, they didn’t pay me $2 million dollars. It was about an branding opportunity.
On turning down good money to promote products
Listen, Proactive came to me asking me to be a spokesperson for their line. I don’t use proactive and it was a lot of money and it was way more money than $2 million dollars. My fans look at me and they want to do everything I want to do. What is she using on her skin? What is she wearing on her hair? I’m more concerned about my fans and telling them what’s real then some money. I’ve turned down alcohol and they always come with the most money and I’m like, ‘no, I’m not doing that,’ because here I am saying I want to turn my life around and I don’t abuse alcohol anymore so why am I going to sell it to you?

Mary’s artist Starshell also spoke up during the interview and said that Burger King had told her that the commercial was suppose to be about a guy dreaming, ‘like OMG! Imagine if the icon Mary J. Blige was singing to me’.
This is a perfect lesson in protecting your brand. It should be added in contracts that the artist has to approve the final version of commercials before it is released. That was scandalous.