Mary J. Blige AI ad pulled after music company made deal with someone pretending to be singer’s rep
Mary J. Blige AI ad pulled after music company made deal with someone pretending to be singer’s rep
Daysia TolentinoFri, September 4, 2026 at 7:15 PM UTC
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Mary J. Blige attends the world premiere of ‘Mary J. Blige Presents: Be Happy’ at Hearst Tower on Feb. 4, 2026Credit: Ilya S. Savenok/GettyKey Points -
Mary J. Blige was featured in an ad for Suno, an AI company that allows users to generate songs in seconds.
Blige was shown in a studio seemingly praising a Suno-generated song as “dope.”
Suno pulled the ad after saying it “entered into a business deal with someone who presented themselves as Ms. Blige’s official representative,” according to Variety.
Suno, an AI music generator, has pulled an advertisement featuring Mary J. Blige.
The now-deleted ad, which was circulated on social media, showed Blige in the studio as a producer builds a song called “Pretty Flowers” that mimics her signature late ‘90s and early aughts R&B sound. In the ad, the singer calls the track “dope.”
“I just process because I don’t know what the hell y’all talking about,” she appears to say in the video. “So I like to learn what you’re talking about.”
After the “Family Affair” singer received backlash for endorsing the AI company, Suno discovered that she had not approved of the ad. A spokesperson for the platform told Entertainment Weekly that it had entered a deal with someone pretending to represent Blige.
“We entered into a business deal with someone who presented themselves as Ms. Blige’s official representative,” the spokesperson said in a statement on Friday. “As soon as we learned this was not the case, and that Ms. Blige was uncomfortable, we terminated the advertising campaign.”
Mary J. Blige attends the 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Mark Guiducci at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on March 15, 2026Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage
It’s unclear where the company got the footage of Blige featured in the advertisement. Suno did not respond to EW’s question about the clip. EW also reached out to representatives for Blige for comment.
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AI technology has been a controversial topic across the entertainment industry, with many musicians expressing their distaste for AI-generated songs. Recently, Bette Midler called the popular song “Celebrate Me” by IngaRose, which was created using Suno, an example of “cultural genocide.”
“It’s a good song created and sung by a machine that stole every lick, every riff, every thought, phrasing style, every choke in the voice, every sorrowful sound from thousands of human artists since the beginning of recorded music, with zero compensation for the artists on whom they trained the machine,” Midler bemoaned.
Suno is an AI platform that allows users to generate songsCredit: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty
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Although, not every artist is opposed to using the tech, as Tyrese Gibson clapped back at Midler in the comments. He argued that “Ai isn’t going anywhere” and said that complaints just make AI songs more popular.
“This song is actually a great song,” he wrote. “I know it’s Ai so many are so many depressed, divorced, and discouraged ... this song has inspired even ME!!!!!! The last song that inspired me from a real artist that was ON MESSAGE was AUDRA DAY!!! What HUMAN writer and SINGER IS gonna write a song that’s better than this?”
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
