Monica is grateful to Ariana Grande for reuniting her with her old friend, Brandy.
As fans of all ages enjoy Ariana Grande’s new “The Boy Is Mine” remix with Brandy and Monica, the Grammy-winning “So Gone” singer opens up about how the star-studded collaboration sparked genuine healing for her and Brandy.
Monica and Brandy’s “The Boy Is Mine” duet was an instant hit in 1998, with the women confessing their feelings for the same man, played by Mekhi Phifer.
The singers both earned a Grammy for the record, but the public began comparing their voices, and sadly, things started to crumble.
Their feud climaxed when Monica punched Brandy backstage at the 1998 VMAs, which Monica claims is the only time they performed together.
The singers never addressed the issue directly; instead, they spent years passively gaslighting it in the press. They reunited in 2012 for a duet titled “It All Belongs to Me.” They appear to have bonded over losing their shared mentor, Whitney Houston.
But that didn’t last. The feud resurfaced in 2016 when Monica appeared on Oprah’s Where Are They Now, where she discussed her relationship with Whitney Houston, referring to the late icon as her “fairy godmother.”
These comments didn’t sit well with Brandy, who was handpicked by the late singer to portray the first Black Cinderella.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the 43-year-old “For You I Will” singer revealed how working on the remix of the pop star’s hit, “The Boy Is Mine” — which was released on Friday, June 21 and inspired by her and Brandy’s 1998 collaboration of the same name — helped heal their relationship after years of their alleged squabbles.
“The new collaboration process did a lot of closing the gaps. When you properly communicate, you can find not only the resolutions and solutions to problems — but sometimes you find that there weren’t ever problems, just consistent miscommunications,” Monica began.
She added, “We recognized that the key was to keep other people out of our relationship, both business and personal, and let it be between her and me, which has changed everything. It’s changed the trajectory of it in its totality,” she told the outlet. “My son was in the hospital the other day, and she was who I was speaking to while he was there — that is what Ariana has done that she may not even realize.”
