Buster
BREAKING: Mary J. Blige Flushes Classic Toilet Seat Demand From 2015 Concert Rider
Van Halen’s brown M&M's. Mariah Carey’s bendy straws. Queen Latifah’s Rough Rider condoms. Jay-Z’s Maybach. M.I.A.’s cave-aged Gruyere.
Concert riders, as TSG visitors have come to learn, are often filled with the unique demands of pampered millionaires. Usually, as an artist gets bigger, so does there list of backstage requirements.
But in a stunning departure, a star has actually flushed one of music’s most amusing demands from her 2015 tour rider.
That’s right, Mary J. Blige is no longer requiring concert promoters to procure a new toilet seat for her to sit upon in her dressing room bathroom. It is a mystery why the 44-year-old R&B singer has dropped her toilet seat demand.
While Blige’s current rider reduces a promoter’s Kohler-releated costs, the singer requires two chauffeur-driven Cadillac Escalades with “captains chairs, dark tinted windows (must be black)” and a separate luggage van. It is unclear why Blige needs two SUVs (her band and crew travel in four passenger vans).
Blige’s dressing room, the rider stipulates, must be a dairy- and pork-free zone that is stocked with both a “tub” of Red Vines licorice and a large package of Twizzlers cherry licorice. The performer also needs “Paul Newman” balsamic vinaigrette and Hidden Valley ranch dressing.
Like many divas, Blige is a fan of Diptyque candles (though not all scents). “(2- Turbereuse, 2 Baes)... ONLY!!,” the rider declares in bold type. Diptyque describes its Tubéreuse candle ($30 for the small size) as “enigmatic and beguiling,” while the Baies candle reportedly “expresses the irresistible freshness of a bouquet of roses, sweetened with blackcurrant leaves.”
Blige begins a short European tour next month with a set at the Glastonbury Festival in England.