Soul queen Mary J Blige owes her rock solid marriage with manager Kendu Isaacs to a sobering epiphany she had backstage at a show.
The I'm Going Down singer was preparing to perform at Harlem, New York's famous Apollo Theater when it hit her that if she went ahead with plans to party with pals after the show, her then-boyfriend would be gone when she got home.
The singer was struggling with booze and drugs at the time and it hit her that Isaacs wasn't prepared to take it any more.
She recalls: "My husband was going through so much with me, watching me going out, cursing him out… and I watched him really hang in there and love me.
"There was something in him that I saw and I said, 'If I come home drunk tonight, he's gonna leave me.'
"When I came home that night from the Apollo... I got home early, I didn't smell of alcohol and I wasn't drinking and he said to me, 'I'm glad you didn't come home drunk, because I was gonna leave you.'"