Mary J. Blige has claimed a sales assistant at a boutique shop refused to let her buy their clothes before she became famous.
In the new docuseries, In Vogue: The 90s, the No More Drama singer and her stylist Misa Hylton recalled a time when Blige’s credit card seemingly kept declining in a boutique shop even though they had money.
According to Hylton, they rang up the credit card company and discovered that it wasn’t a problem with their finances – the shop assistant allegedly didn’t want them to buy their garments.
“The card’s not declining. It’s actually not even being rung. Like, ‘Oh, okay. You don’t want us to buy these items,'” Hylton said, reports People. “It’s because we were young and we were Black, and they could not figure out how we were spending this much money.
“They didn’t even realise who Mary J. Blige was yet, and so you see how luxury fashion brands didn’t really value us or didn’t respect us. They didn’t see their brands on us.”
Blige added that being rejected by the luxury fashion brand, which was not named, made them feel like “little street kids”.
The Grammy Award-winning singer, who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year, noted that luxury shop employees stopped treating them like that after she became famous.
“They didn’t want to – they probably didn’t want to take our business (at the time). They weren’t treating us the way they treat us now. Absolutely not,” she stated.
The episode also includes interviews with Tommy Hilfiger, Naomi Campbell, Missy Elliott and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Viewers also see Blige and Elliott discuss their iconic 1998 Vogue fashion shoot with Lil’ Kim.
In Vogue: The 90s is now streaming on Hulu or Disney+.
