Mary J. Blige takes on the two biggest roles of her life

Nine-time Grammy award-winning recording artist Mary J. Blige says her role as Dr. Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X’s wife, in Lifetime movie, Betty & Coretta, was a role her family understood she needed to do.

“The balance is there because everyone understands what is going on. They know what I am and that I am a busy artist who travels a lot,” says the stepmom to three. Not only did she star in the movie alongside Angela Basset, but she was also executive producer.

Mary J. has been asked multiple times over her eight-year marriage to Kendu Issacs if she planned on having more children in addition to her stepchildren. “When it’s time and when it happens, it’s in my future. But I’m not planning it,” she says.

In raising her stepchildren, she looks to her mother as a role model. “My mother was a single mom that always went through so much. She tried to be strong for all of us, which was enough,” she says. “She had many jobs and had to go through many babysitters and she constantly tried to push us to go to school and do chores. That speaks for itself.”