{"id":2243403,"date":"2026-01-21T06:41:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2243403"},"modified":"2026-01-21T06:41:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:41:04","slug":"mary-j-blige-reveals-that-she-passed-on-one-of-rihannas-most-famous-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/mary-j-blige-reveals-that-she-passed-on-one-of-rihannas-most-famous-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary J. Blige reveals that she passed on one of Rihanna’s most famous songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Rihanna<\/strong> has many chart-topping hits, but one of her most famous and instantly recognizable is her 2007 track, “Umbrella.” The track came with a verse from Jay-Z<\/strong> and a viral music video, which has over 1.2 billion views on YouTube at the time of this publication. But it turns out she wasn’t the first singer it was offered to.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Mary\u00a9 Gregory Pace\/BEI\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/div>\n

Mary J Blige has no regrets<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Christopher “Tricky” Stewart,<\/strong> Terius “The-Dream” Nash, and Kuk Harrelt originally wrote the song with Britney Spears<\/strong> in mind, but because of her personal life, they had Mary J. Blige\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<\/strong>Ri<\/strong>hanna in mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 9-time GRAMMY winner and Oscar nominee was a guest on 7 PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony\u00a0when she was asked if there was a song or beat that got away from her. She revealed it was “Umbrella,” explaining, \u201cIt\u2019s not something that got away from me.” \u201cIt\u2019s just that I know what\u2019s for me and what\u2019s not for me,” she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reason Blige wanted to turn it down is probably what made it so infectious – the “ella ella” line. “I heard was [the vocalized refrain] \u2018eh, eh,\u2019 and I was like \u2018Yo, my fans are gonna bug out on me if they hear me talking about \u2018eh eh, eh,'” she explained. “So I was like, \u2018I got a lot going on. So I\u2019m going to pass.”<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Mary\u00a9 Jeff Kravitz\/FilmMagic<\/span><\/div>\n

Mary J. Blige coulnd’t get past the “ella ella”<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But there are no regrets. When the “Family Affair” singer heard Rih’ on the track, she said she knew it was always meant for her. \u201cI was like, \u2018See, it was for Rihanna. It wasn\u2019t for me,” she said. \u201cI\u2019m not afraid to pass on something that\u2019s not for me. It got away, it got away, but it wasn\u2019t for me in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Umbrella” was on Rihanna’s<\/a> 2007 album Good Girl Gone Bad and is regarded as the song that made her a superstar. It became a full-blown force, racking up wins and nominations at award shows across the globe, earning Rih her first GRAMMY.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Rih\u00a9 Grosby Group<\/span><\/div>\n

Rih earned her first GRAMMY thanks to the song<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It took home Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards, won Best Rap\/Sung Collaboration at the Grammys, and was crowned Song of the Year at the Barbados Music Awards. The track also scored major wins at the VH1 Soul VIBE Awards, Swiss Music Awards, and MuchMusic Video Awards, while earning nominations from the Teen Choice Awards, MTV Europe Music Awards, NAACP Image Awards, and multiple Nickelodeon Kids\u2019 Choice ceremonies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hola.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rihanna has many chart-topping hits, but one of her most famous and instantly recognizable is her 2007 track, “Umbrella.” The track came with a verse from Jay-Z and a viral music video, which has over 1.2 billion views on YouTube at the time of this publication. But it turns out she wasn’t the first singer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2243404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[21751,21741,24581],"class_list":["post-2243403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-rihanna"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Mary-J-Blige-reveals-that-she-passed-on-one-of.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2243403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2243405,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243403\/revisions\/2243405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2243404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2243403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2243403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2243403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}