*Fans of the late great Luther Vandross may not know of his past beef with En Vogue, which he highlighted in his biographical book, “Luther: The Life and Longing Of Luther Vandross.”
As noted by iloveoldschoolmusic.com, a few of the ladies even publicly described him “nasty” and a “tyrant.”
In a 1993 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cindy Herron spilled this tea: “We’ve been having a lot of problems with Luther…our nickname for him is Lucifer.”
A year later in a Vibe Magazine interview, En Vogue explained why they suddenly quit Luther’s “Never Let Me Go Tour.”
Get the deets below.
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DID YOU KNOW? Every Luther Vandross studio album between 1981 and 1996 has a sold million copies or more. The 11th and final of these albums, ‘Your Secret Love’ was certified Platinum by the RIAA 20 years ago !
Listen Here:https://t.co/noyGyAD0Z1— Luther Vandross (@OfficialLutherV) December 13, 2018
According to iloveoldschoolmusic.com, Dawn Robinson confirmed something that was revealed in Luther’s biography — that he put up curtains backstage to avoid looking at them. He also told them, “Don’t come on my side! I don’t want to see your faces! You can’t wear any costumes that compete with my girls!’”
Dawn also said all hell broke loose when En Vogue declined Luther’s request to do the Arsenio Hall Show.
“Luther asked us to do Arsenio [Show] for the tour, and we said ‘no.’ We’d done too much TV and we thought we were getting overexposed. …We apologized…But Luther wouldn’t let it go.”
Robinson said they even clashed over stage design because Luther’s big band blocked the audience from being able to fully see the ladies on the rotating stage. When they confronted Vandross about it, things went left real fast.
“The band was blocking the views. We were getting bad write-ups. We told Luther, and he could have said, ‘It’s not your fault. Let’s get it right.’ “
But Dawn says that’s not the response they received. Instead, she said: “The vibe we got was the total opposite. It was like he wanted to have the most cluttered stage possible, with wires everywhere and a drum set that was huge.”
When a verbal dispute reignited over their previous “Arsenio Show” cancellation, they asked Luther “Why do you keep bringing this up?”
“[Luther] said, ‘I have a right, as a 42 year old man, to bring this up.’ Now, what does that mean? You could be 12 or you could be 90-what’s your point? He was just so nasty.”
That’s when she says En Vogue had enough with his diva behavior and quit the tour.
According to group member Terry Ellis, “[Luther] was such a tyrant.”
Terry said their road to fame “all happened so fast” back then and “the stuff we went through with Luther, other acts go through long before they’re opening stadiums and arenas. … They have the time to learn how to deal with it. It’s sad. He was such a tyrant.”
Cindy stated that “nothing we’d done prepared us for an experience like Luther.”
“Luther was just so nasty. …It was so intense, but as a Christian, I had to try to understand that we’re all people, and we have our own lives and things that have affected us and our weaknesses.”
According to his 2004 biography: “While on tour in Miami, Luther saw that a member of En Vogue had wandered over to “his side” of the drawn curtain. His temper hit full-tilt and he “actually” called the Miami police to demand the group be charged with trespassing,” the report states.
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