Mary J. Blige says she owed 'hundreds of millions' in unpaid taxes: 'I never thought I'd ever get out of debt'
- Mary J. Blige said that she once "owed hundreds of millions of dollars" in unpaid taxes.
- "I owed so much money I never thought I'd ever get out of debt," the R&B legend said.
Mary J. Blige has said that she "owed hundreds of millions of dollars" in unpaid taxes at the height of her financial problems.
"I owed so much money I never thought I'd ever get out of debt," the R&B legend said during a panel at her second annual Strength of a Woman festival this past weekend in Atlanta.
In 2013, it was reported that the singer owed $3.4 million in unpaid taxes over the span of three years, while she was also sued for defaulting on two bank loans in 2012 and 2013 amounting to a total of $2.7 million.
According to Bossip, in 2019, the Internal Revenue Service then filed a tax lien against Blige, claiming she owed the federal government $1,198,161 in back taxes.
"I'm out of debt now," added Blige. "Now I have the wisdom, now I look at my payroll... that's not my money. My taxes are not my money, so I'm like, 'Pay my payroll, pay my taxes, pay my tithes.' All of that money, I don't even wanna see it because it doesn't belong to me."
Blige went on to suggest that her financial problems stemmed from her marriage and subsequent divorce from her ex-husband and manager Martin "Kendu" Isaacs.
"He was in control of everything," she said of Isaacs.
Blige and Issacs were married between 2003 and 2018.
In an interview with "The Breakfast Club" last year, the 52-year-old singer spoke candidly about their separation and her resulting financial problems.
"By the time I got to the deposition and saw everything that he did, I didn't have a dollar left," she said. "He spent everything, and he knew he spent everything but he was still asking me for more money."
During the interview, Blige also revealed that her 2022 song "Rent Money" was inspired by Isaacs' irresponsible spending.
"I had to give up all this alimony, and I didn't have no more money to give because he had spent it all," she said."I had to go on tour and make all the money back to pay the alimony."