Hollywood elites haven't just pushed sex on women. At other times, they've pressured women to have abortions, according to one R&B singer.
On Monday, Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live YouTube channel published an interview between host Andy Cohen and popular ’90s female R&B group Xscape. The group, which split in 1998, recently reunited to take on new musical endeavors.
During the interview, Cohen revealed that one of the singers was pressured to have an abortion by the group’s management.
“Tamika, I was really fascinated by hearing tonight that you got pregnant when you were in the group, and you had – was it a manager at the time? – that wanted you not to have the child,” Cohen said.
Tamika Scott confirmed.
“Yes,” she said. “They gave me an ultimatum to stay in the group or have an abortion.”
Cohen wanted to know the group’s reaction when it found out.
“They were mad at me,” Scott admitted, because they were at the height of success. “We’re getting ready to make it, and now I’m pregnant and so I had to have – make a choice.”
Even so, she stressed, “I stood up for what I believe in” by keeping her baby. “God blessed me and still do – still does now,” she added.
Again, Cohen followed up by asking if the group gave her “trouble for making the choice.” That’s when Tamika’s fellow singer and sister, LaTocha, chimed in.
When the group’s management threatened Tamika, her fellow singers fought back.
“They tried to kick her out of the group,” LaTocha revealed. “And when it came down to it, I just told them ‘No, if my sister goes, I go.’ So that’s just how that came about. And they were like, ‘Oh no, you’re not going anywhere. We’re going to work this out.’”
Tamika joked that she “still out danced” the others while she was “pregnant with my baby.” That baby turned out to be her daughter, O'Shun Reney, who was born in 1994.
Another fellow singer, Kandi Burruss, emphasized that the abortion pressure was part of a larger problem for record labels then.
“I think back in the ’90s, it was just harder like for girl groups like people would look down upon girl groups when something like that would happen and so the record labels would put more pressure on you if you did, you know, have a pregnancy,” she said. “Nowadays, people have ‘baby bump alert’ and everybody’s excited, but they weren’t like that in the ’90s.”
But other singers in the industry stress that Hollywood elites pushing abortion on young women is still a problem today.
