Mary J. Blige and Whitney Houston Duet Rejected By Clive Davis

The beloved 1999 hit, “Don’t Waste Your Time,” by Mary J. Blige featuring the late Aretha Franklin was quite a memorable track, however, it almost didn’t turn out this way. In an excerpt from an unpublished 2019 interview with Blige’s former manager Kirk Burrowes, according to a resurfaced Rated R&B, the “Don’t Waste Your Time” feature was first presented to the late Whitney Houston, but Clive Davis (Whitney’s producer) turned down the opportunity.

Kirk Burrowes stated: “I wanted Mary to do a duet with Whitney [Houston]. “He had Whitney and Aretha Franklin, but what Clive did was cut the baby in half. So he set it up for me and Mary to do the Whitney duet on Divas Live, so I could get the Whitney duet that I wanted…I was disappointed because Whitney and Mary at that time would have been, ‘Wow.’ But when he said, Ms. Aretha Franklin. I was like, ‘This is legendary. This is that moment to pass the baton.”

Source: BET