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For Mary J. Blige, performing at last year’s Super Bowl halftime show souped up her already legendary career to new heights.
“It was a straight peak,” Blige — rocking a green and white Versace catsuit — told The Post at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club in Manhattan.
“The Super Bowl just took me to another level, you know, where people that I never thought would be looking at me are watching me. The whole world was watching. So it’s just a whole ’nother level, a whole ’nother experience right now.”
Indeed, at 52, Blige is having a midlife moment: After slaying the stage at last month’s Grammys — where her latest LP, 2022’s “Good Morning Gorgeous,” was up for Album of the Year — now she’s busting a TV takeover with her new BET show “The Wine Down,” debuting on Wednesday, and then the third season of “Power Book II: Ghost,” premiering March 17.
“The Wine Down” — on which Blige chats with celebrities such as 50 Cent and Taraji P. Henson over a glass (or two) of vino — was inspired during the pandemic shutdown.
“The thought about it came to me when COVID first hit, and we were in that quarantine,” said Blige.
“And I was just thinking about how many people needed someone to reach out to them … letting us know that we were not alone.”
Viewers will get to have an intimate audience with the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul. “This is who I am to my friends, this is who I am to the people I love and respect,” she said.
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But Blige — who notoriously didn’t like to do interviews early in her career (“I still don’t,” she said) — makes clear that “The Wine Down” isn’t a talk show.
“I don’t have an audience,” said Blige, sipping a glass of rosé from her Sun Goddess wine line that she will be drinking on the series.
“It’s a conversation where I’m steering the questions, but everybody gets a chance to steer the questions back to me.”
Later this month, Blige will resume her role as drug queenpin Monet Tejada on “Power Book II.”
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And she recently wrapped the film “Rob Peace,” a real-life drama directed by and costarring “12 Years a Slave” actor Chiwetel Ejiofor.
And there’s no doubt about who Blige — a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee for 2017’s “Mudbound” — will be rooting for at this year’s Academy Awards on March 12. “Angela Bassett,” she said of the Best Supporting Actress nominee for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
“It’s gonna be a riot if she doesn’t win.”
The Yonkers, New York, native also has real love for Rihanna, who performed at last month’s Super Bowl halftime show.
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“I think that what she did on her own was amazing,” said Blige. “And she revealed to us one of the most precious things in the world: another life.”
Beyond the Super Bowl, Blige also has another special connection to mama-to-be Ri-Ri: The “No More Drama” diva was offered “Umbrella” before Rihanna turned it into her first No. 1 smash in 2007.
But she has no regrets about passing on it.
“It wasn’t for me — it was for her,” she said.
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No doubt, Blige couldn’t fake the funk on “Umbrella” — and it’s that kind of from-the-gut grittiness that has helped her maintain a very personal relationship with her fans since her groundbreaking debut, 1992’s “What’s the 411?”
“They feel like they know me because I am them,” she said.
“I’m a human being that has gone through hell — emotional, physical, mental, whatever … But I’ve also come out on the other side and experienced what heaven is as well.”