Mary J. Blige lost her cool early Wednesday morning in a tweet slamming critics who took issue with her recent serenading of Hillary Clinton in a sit-down interview for Apple Music.
In the tweet, which was later deleted, Blige told her ‘haters’ to “shut the f**k up.”
The singer also used a series of hashtags referring to her critics as “simple minded” and “crabs in a barrel.”
The controversy stems from a recent promo video of Blige’s special interview with presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, which airs this Friday. In it, Blige sings to Clinton about a black mother’s fear for her son and the national crisis involving police officers shooting and killing unarmed black men.
Social media quickly used the opportunity to poke fun at Blige in a myriad of memes, while some took her to task for what they considered to be a mockery of black people. Others simply disagreed with Blige as a choice altogether to interview Clinton.
Mary J Blige really sang a modern day Slave Hymn to Hillary Clinton.
— Tashauna Justice (@tashaunaj__) September 27, 2016
Lmao I can’t ?? #hillaryclinton #maryjblige #hilarious #toomuch #petty
A photo posted by Jonai (@mjg1203) on
This isn’t the first time Blige caught heat for what looked like her celebrity being used to pander or parody the black experience. Back in 2012, she appeared in a Burger King commercial in which she sang a jingle about its fried chicken wrap.
Blige later apologized to those who were offended.
“I want to apologize to everyone that was offended or thought that I would do something so disrespectful to our culture. I would never do anything like that purposefully. I thought I was doing something right. So forgive me,” she said.