Mary J. Blige on turning down Rihanna’s smash ‘Umbrella’: ‘It wasn’t for me’

nypost.com:

performing at last year’s Super Bowl halftime show souped up her already legendary career to new heights.“It was a straight peak,” Blige — rocking a green and white Versace catsuit — told The Post at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club in Manhattan. “The Super Bowl just took me to another level, you know, where people that I never thought would be looking at me are watching me.

The whole world was watching. So it’s just a whole ’nother level, a whole ’nother experience right now.”Indeed, at 52, Blige is having a midlife moment: After slaying the stage at last month’s Grammys — where her latest LP, 2022’s “Good Morning Gorgeous,” was up for Album of the Year — now she’s busting a TV takeover with her new BET show “The Wine Down,” debuting on Wednesday, and then the third season of “Power Book II: Ghost,” premiering March 17.“The Wine Down” — on which Blige chats with celebrities such as 50 Cent and Taraji P.

Henson over a glass (or two) of vino — was inspired during the pandemic shutdown.“The thought about it came to me when COVID first hit, and we were in that quarantine,” said Blige. “And I was just thinking about how many people needed someone to reach out to them … letting us know that we were not alone.”Viewers will get to have an intimate audience with the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul. “This is who I am to my friends, this is who I am to the people I love and respect,” she said.But Blige — who notoriously didn’t like to do interviews early in her career (“I still don’t,” she said) — makes clear that “The Wine Down” isn’t a talk show. “I don’t have an audience,” said Blige, sipping a glass of rosé from her Sun Goddess wine line that she will be drinking on the series.