Growing up, I was a HUGE En Vogue fan. I remember watching their music videos and dancing along to their music. They were everything to me. So you can just imagine how dissapointed I was to find out that the group split (and made up) and split forever leaving some group members broke and destitute. Maxine Jones one of the founding members of the group is spilling the tea and it is GOOD! In an interview with
Juicy Magazine, the now 52 year old singer dishes on losing the rights to "En Vogue" and being betrayed by her fellow group members
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| Max Jones |
Peep the highlights from the interview below:
ON LOSING THE RIGHT TO USE THE EN VOGUE NAME TO HER FORMER GROUP MATES, CINDY HERRON AND TERRY ELLIS:
“It’s been difficult, and it’s been difficult mainly because I feel like all the years I spent there and what I helped to build – you know, 30 million records sold – and what my input…and to just have nothing to show for it. For a long time…it’s been two-and-a-half, going on three-years now since this whole thing happened, but I was mostly angry for most of that time. It’s not until this year really that I totally embraced the idea of putting it behind me and starting out on my own and starting from scratch. Before that, my mind was in the mode that I’m still in a group, I’m not giving up, I’m going to get some more girls, and I’m going to go out there, and I’m going to be in this En Vogue too. I am a third, I own a third, I own a right to use the name too. That’s how it was originally – that trademark has my name on it too in the Library of Congress. My name is on that trademark, and so that was the thing. It was a big deal to me to first of all, to be forced out, and then my intellectual property to be taken away from me. It just really, honestly, pissed me off.”
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| The original members of En Vogue in happier times |
ON APPEALING THE DECISION THAT STRIPPED HER OF THE RIGHT TO USE THE EN VOGUE NAME:
“The battle is not over because they’ve won with an arbitrator, and to me, the whole hearing was not fair, unfair to me totally, and so I’m appealing it. Now my case is going before the appellate. The appellate has viewed it and decided it’s worthy of them ruling on. So that’s where it is right now, and I’m hopeful. I’m very hopeful. I’m not giving up. It’s going to take the appellate to tell me, ‘no Max, that’s been pulled away from you. Forget about it, put it behind you.’ It’s going to take the appellate judges to do that. I just feel like I have to fight. I just feel like that’s something that’s not so easy for me to do – it’s my legacy. I’ve put in the time, I’ve put in the work, I’ve earned the right, and I’m not giving it up easy.”
ON IF SHE FEELS BETRAYED BY CINDY AND TERRY:
“Yeah, I totally do, I totally do. I feel like it was a power grab for them. Yeah, I totally feel betrayed by them, and I feel like what they did to me, I wouldn’t have expected it from them, and I wouldn’t have dreamt of doing that to them, so I’m hurt. At first I was very, very hurt, and then it went to anger, and it’s still a little bit of all of that there, not so much so now because I’m going to move on. Before I felt like it was paralyzing – I felt devastated, but not anymore. I’m able to move forward, and I’m grateful for that. And it’s a blessing, you know. Even though I feel like this, at the same time, I know when I look at the big picture, it’s divine order, you know. It’s time for me to leave…the problems that existed, that exists with the four of us and with that group was never going to go away, things weren’t ever going to change, things were never going to be different, so it was time to move on. I was there hoping, trying to see if I could get some more out of it because of putting so much into it.”
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| Terry & Cindy with the new group member Renee |
ON DISAGREEMENTS ABOUT MANAGEMENT AND THE GROUP BEING DOOMED FROM THE START:
“It’s a bigger issue [than management], it was a bigger issue than that, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was the issue you probably read in the court documents. But the problems that existed in the group, that exist in the group, is really one of the girls had been screwing around with one of the producers. We were put together by two producers [Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy], and Terry started sleeping with one of the guys almost from the beginning, and that just kind of devastated us. We were never a unit. When we were renegotiating our contracts and trying to make it better for ourselves, I remember just going to him and telling him – he had been calling me like crazy – and I told him that I made my decision, I was going to stick with the group. We were a unit, and I’ll never forget what he told me because it’s just so true, and it’s still true to this day. He said to me – he was pissed that I had made my choice, and he was angry – and he said, ‘You are no f*cking group! Can’t you see that?’ Is what he said to me. He said, ‘Dawn is crazy, she’s all over the place, Max. She’s here, she’s there, she’s everywhere. Cindy don’t have a damn clue Max,’ he said to me. ‘And guess what Max? She don’t care. And I got your partner Terry in my back pocket. How you going to call yourself a group when I got your partners, she’s supposed to be your partner Max, and she’s in my back pocket. I’m trying to tell you Max, you’re just going to be left ass out.’ And that’s the dynamic of this group, that’s always been the dynamic. I’m always the one that’s the easily replaceable one. If I don’t like it, I can get out. And so yes, for me it came to a head. With this particular manager…now that problem, that issue existed from day one. But the manager that we had when I left there was the worst manager this group has ever seen because all this stuff happened on his watch. We’re doomed…there’s no getting back together with those girls or us reuniting after what just happened to me.”
ON HER FINANCIAL STATUS WHEN SHE LEFT EN VOGUE:
“When I officially left the group, it wasn’t bad at that point, but it certainly got bad because of course I had no income. It got bad once I lost the arbitrator’s ruling because it totally stopped me from working. Before that, it wasn’t bad because just like Terry and Cindy were going out and calling themselves the whole group, I was doing the same thing, and nobody had a problem. It’s the name, you know, that name and what we built. The reputation behind it, and nobody cared really. As long as they could use that name, it was going to draw the fans out, you know. And so, both of us were doing that. Once the arbitrator’s ruling came, it just totally stopped me from being able to go out using the name En Vogue, and they said I couldn’t have the name En Vogue, I had to say ‘formerly of’. Terry, Cindy, and their attorneys, anytime a promoter tried to book me and even say Maxine Jones, formerly of En Vogue, they were intimidating them, and telling them they were going to be sued just by having the name En Vogue in the caption. It basically scared away anyone who wanted to hire me.”
ON THE POSSIBILITY OF HER REUNITING WITH THE LADIES:
“There’s no way. I can’t work alongside those chicks and they tried to see to it that I ended up with zero, with nothing, and totally devastated. No. I will not stand alongside those girls and get on stage with them, no.”
Read the rest of the interview here
Now what did she say about a tell all? I have all the time in the world for a juicy tell all book!
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