Queen of the Damned

Singer Mary J Blige would always mention how Aaliyah’s death totally changed her life. After reading interviews with Mary J about the singers death, it makes one wonder…

Interview with Oprah Magazine:

Oprah: What brought you to that point? I know 9/11 was traumatic for you.

Mary: Yes. And Aaliyah had just died. [Recording artist Aaliyah's plane crashed on August 25, 2001.] My life was her life. She was surrounded by people who weren’t telling her the real deal. We weren’t close friends, but I’d talked with her a couple of times. I very well could’ve been the woman on that plane.

Oprah: It was your wake-up call.

Mary: Yes. I was doing a show at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Kendu and I weren’t married yet, and I overheard him say, “If Mary comes in this house drunk tonight, I’m gonna leave her.” So during the performance, “I kept thinking, I’m going to go home sober and tell him I’m not gonna drink anymore.” After the show, I received a call from the girl who always got the drinks and drugs. When I went to her house, she had the biggest bottle of wine she could find on the table. I took off all my makeup and just sat there. “You want a glass of wine?” she asked. I said no. I got up and left for home at 10 o’clock that night. Normally, I’d be stepping in the house at 4 in the morning. When I came in without alcohol on my breath, Kendu said, “I’m so proud of you.” That same night, we got the call: Aaliyah was dead.

Oprah: Has your transformation compelled you toward a greater responsibility in your artistry and lyrics?

Mary: Absolutely. One reason I turned my life around is that I realized millions of fans were following my example. I don’t want to be responsible for killing us. I want to be responsible for uplifting us. In the song “Family Affair,” I sing about getting drunk….

A different interview:

“MARY J BLIGE gave up her drink and drug-fueled lifestyle after experiencing the shock of fellow R+B star AALIYAH’s untimely death.

The 34-year-old singer became paranoid about her own demise after hearing the ROMEO MUST DIE beauty had been killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas in 2001.

Blige explains, “She (Aaliyah) wasn’t a close friend. It was just that when I saw her die, that’s when I discovered the fact that I’m next.I don’t know how or when, but I’m next.

“I don’t know what kind of freak accident they’re going to put me in, or what kind of overdose of heroin they’re going to sort out, but at the end of the day, I knew I was next. “I just thought, I’m scared.”

“…I don’t even know what to say. Uh. I just know that, that was a murder. You know what I’m saying? That was a spiritual murder whether people know it or not because God don’t kill people. You know what I’m saying? Whether people know it or not. I could go deeper. For a lot of people I would really have to bring proof. You know what I’m saying? from what I learned. She was cut down from the prime of her life. It’s so unfair…I believe it wasn’t her time because from what I know, it ain’t suppose to go down like that. Simple obedience like, your gut always warns you. Your gut never lies to you. Something like luggage, clothes and jewelry and all this madness that we worship, it’s called false idols. We really need to look at the bigger picture right now and how honey could be here right now…”

'Movie vampire told me to kill'

Allan Menzies said he was visited by a vampire

A man accused of murdering his friend has told a court how he "wanted to go out and murder people" after watching a vampire film about 100 times.

Allan Menzies, 22, claimed that he was ordered to kill Thomas McKendrick by a character in the movie Queen Of The Damned.

He said at the High Court in Edinburgh that he was told he would be rewarded with immortality and become a vampire "in the next life".

Mr Menzies said he was visited in his West Lothian home by the female vampire Akasha, who was played in the film by the late US singer Aaliyah.

He was giving evidence on the sixth day of his trial.

Bedroom visits

Mr Menzies denies killing Mr McKendrick, who he had known since he was four years old, on 11 December last year and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

The jury has been told that his offer to plead guilty to culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility was rejected by the Crown.

Mr Menzies, from Fauldhouse, said Akasha visited him in his bedroom.

"In general terms, she started off having conversations with me and it ended up that I had basically agreed with her that if I murdered people I would be rewarded in the next life," he said.

" I heard it in my mind, basically, that the two of them were plotting to kill me  "

Allan Menzies

"I would be made immortal in the next life - a vampire, basically."

He said that he believed Mr McKendrick and another friend, Stuart Unwin, wanted to kill him.

"I heard it in my mind, basically, that the two of them were plotting to kill me," he said.

Mr Menzies told the court he had killed Mr McKendrick using a bowie knife, a kitchen knife and a hammer.

But he said his father Thomas and Mr Unwin had been responsible for disposing of the body.

He said he had not told the police about this to protect his father.

State hospital

Mr Menzies told the court that Akasha had continued to visit him after the killing, but he rejected demands that he kill more people.

He also said the film character had visited him at Carstairs, where he has been a patient for five months.

Mr Menzies said he was "disappointed" that there were no other vampires in the state hospital.

Earlier, two psychiatrists said that Menzies was not suffering from a severe mental illness at the time of the attack.

Personality disorder

Defence counsel Donald MacLeod suggested his client suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

However, that was rejected by consultant forensic psychiatrists Derek Chiswick and Colin Gray.

Dr Chiswick, 58, said he believed Mr Menzies suffered from an "anti-social personality disorder".

But he said it was "extremely unlikely" that he was a paranoid schizophrenic.