The October issue of Ebony features an article on Mary J. Blige, who shines on the cover in a leopard sheath. In the article, the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul talks about how she found out about Amy Winehouse’s death.
“When I got the text about Amy, I was lying down on the bed,’’ says Blige, who was interviewed for the article the day after Winehouse was discovered in her London apartment.  “I got up and read the message about her death and just lay back down again. I kept getting up and laying back down for some reason. I’d always wanted to work with Amy, so I just couldn’t believe it really.  And then it hit me—that could have been me. That really could have been me!”
The 40-year-old Blige has famously had issues with drug addiction, and while no illicit drugs were found in Winehouse’s system at autopsy, she long struggled with her own demons.
For more of the interview, Ebony is on newsstands now.

(Photo: Ebony Magazine, October 2011)