Mary J. Blige Opens Up About Her 'Horrible Marriage' & Divorce

Mary J. Blige, Carey Mulligan and filmmaker Dee Rees are on the cover of Variety, out on newsstands now.

Here’s what the Mudbound stars had to say:

Mary on her failed marriage to Kendu Isaacs and their divorce: “I used a
lot of my own heaviness from my own misery that I was living in that horrible marriage. I was just dying in it. I knew something was wrong. I just couldn’t prove it. I just had all the heaviness of not feeling right, not feeling good. I gave it to Florence.”

Mary on the aftermath of her divorce: “I’m doing OK. I’m living. I’m not happy about a lot of things. I thought someone loved me, right? Turns out, he was a con artist and he didn’t, and now he’s coming after me for all my money. When you come out of something like that, you realize you were never the one. There was someone else that was his queen. I got played. I got suckered. I have to keep smiling and keep my spirits up because this is designed to kill me.”

Carey on her role in The Great Gatsby: “I didn’t love my work in Gatsby. I’m not sure if I slightly kind of lost my way because I was intimidated by the scale of it. I think I might have been overawed by the experience and intimidated by the level of performances around me.”

For more from Mary, Carey and Dee, visit Variety.com.