Is Mary J. Blige Broke?

As scandal surrounds her charity organization, it appears that the Grammy award singer could be facing money problems.

By: Amanda Anderson-Niles

Mary J. Blige made headlines when she announced that she founded her own charity organization, the The Mary J. Blige and Steve Stoute Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now, a foundation with a sole purpose of providing women with the funding to receive an education. Blige’s organization, better known as the acronym FFAWN, is reportedly under fire for its failure to repay a $250,000 loan in full.

The loan was supposed to be paid in full by 2011, but by December of 2011, only $368.33 was paid.

The organization is also in hot water for its failure to file a 2010 tax return. There are also complaints from musicians that performed for the foundation’ events a year ago that suggest they still have not been compensated for their services, which totals a whopping $167,000.

Mary’s organization is currently being sued for the musicians’ fees.

The singer was mum on the situation up until a recent interview with Hot 97’s Angie Martinez.

In the interview, Blige says:

“It happens that FFAWN [The Mary J Blige and Steve Stoute Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now] has been mismanaged [financially]. When I found out about all these issues and things concerning FFAWN, I immediately got on the phone with my lawyers and my advisors and tried to rectify this and fix this so none of those women [aided by the charity] would suffer that are going to college…my goal is to do exactly what I set out to do and my motives were true and upfront: I set out to empower, encourage and help women and because I got a second chance myself, I wanted to give them a second chance. But it turns out that the business part of it was not managed properly…the funding that needed to come in for everything, the business side [of the organization] dropped the ball and everyone was about to suffer.

Right now as we speak, I’ve hired a team of people that are making sure that my business is taken as far as FFAWN is concerned. FFAWN is not shutting down, we are restructuring and we put a great team of people in place. I’m just proud to say that the grants, the scholarships that we set out to take care of will be taken care of.”

The controversy follows right after another scandal that involved a Burger King commercial featuring the singer being yanked off the air. In the commercial, the R&B diva can be seen singing on top of the table about her love for Crispy Chicken Wraps.

Many believed Mary’s poor decision to take part in the controversial commercial could be a result of recent financial woes that are troubling the singer.

6 comments

  1. I wouldn’t be surprised. Her husband seems like a snake and it was totally out of character for her to have done a Burger King commercial like that one. I hope it all works out for her though.

  2. Eh this stuff happens to celebs all the time when they aren’t paying attention to the people the are doing business with. I don’t think she’s broke, but she definitely sees the snakes in the grass now. It’s no secret that most of the people who run charities and non profits are some of the shadiest people in business.

  3. I’m not sure is she’s broke or not but people don’t seem to see how easy it is for a celeb to go broke. The average person can blow through millions in a few years, so we can’t expect celebs to be any different.

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