Missy Elliott is a force of nature. The rapper, writer, and producer has more than earned
her iconic status, with a successful career that's still thriving decades after it began.
But if you think you know everything about her, you're wrong. This is the untold truth
of Missy Elliott.
Missy Elliott made a huge splash when she first burst onto the music scene. But that
doesn't mean she always had it easy, far from it. Part of that has to do with the fact that
she's a woman of color who's not obsessed with being skinny.
"Man, I hate diets."
When she received the 2018 Essence Black Women in Music Visionary Award, she told her black
female audience how valuable they truly are, announcing that,
"I want all of you women in here to know that you're beautiful. You gotta believe in yourself.
Because there are going to be times that people tell you [that] you can't do it or you don't
look the part. But I am a walking testimony."
Even though Elliott has struggled because of her race, she wouldn't trade it for the
world, as it's shaped the woman she is today. In a 2017 interview with Elle, she said,
"We are survivors, and once we know that, we are unstoppable. I always said I wouldn't
be no other color, because if there's one thing about us, we never really had, but we
know how to, we know how to survive."
"As long as you are breathing, it is never too late."
According to an interview in Elle, Missy Elliott was told in high school that she has a genius-level
IQ. Despite that fact, Elliott was in danger of failing all of her classes at one point,
but it clearly wasn't because she lacked smarts.
The esteemed producer Timbaland has known of her brilliance for decades. In an interview
with Tidal, he wondered aloud about her 2002 hit "Work It," asking,
"How did she know to pick those words to reverse? How did she know it would give it that rhythm?
That cadence? That's what is ingenious about it; that's what caught me."
In fact, Elliott has always struck Timbaland as someone who's way ahead of the curve. As
he explains it,
"Missy was a person who pushed me, who watched what I did, and turned around to make a masterpiece.
It's unexplainable. Unorthodox, but light. She makes something that's not the norm normal."
For a long time, Missy Elliott didn't realize how creative she is…nor the kind of impact
she's had on other artists. In a 2019 interview with Marie Claire, she recalled,
"I was just going, going, going. It wasn't resonating what was happening."
That includes performing at the Super Bowl in 2015 and doing Carpool Karaoke with Michelle
Obama in 2016, neither of which are small potatoes.
Fortunately, Elliott has since managed to reflect on her career, and knows the impact
she's had on the industry. She told Marie Claire:
"Now that I've had a chance to slow down, I look back at stuff, and I look back at my
'She's a B----' video [in 1999], and at the time I didn't even think about it. But I look
at it now and I'm like, 'This is still so many years ahead.'"
Missy Elliott always knew she was born to be famous, and she'd happily tell her kindergarten
class all about it. In a 2019 interview with The Guardian, she said,
"The teacher would ask what everyone wanted to be and I said: 'I'm going to be a superstar.'
And everyone in the class would laugh."
"I always wonder if any of them out there remember me."
When Elliott's career first started to blow up, she received calls from Janet Jackson,
Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston all in the same month. As she told The Guardian in 2019,
"It happened so fast that I'm just now getting a chance to sit back and re-evaluate everything.
This year has allowed me to look back over my life and be like: 'Wow.'"
How did Missy Elliott's fame and fortune come to be? If you ask her, she manifested it herself.
In 2019, she told Marie Claire,
"It’s funny because I was just telling somebody that everything I spoke, I’ve done. And
that’s how powerful the tongue is."
When she was a little girl, she used to pretend to speak to her favorite entertainers in her
bedroom.
She tells Marie Claire,
"I used to sit in the house and act like I was having conversations with Janet and Michael
and Madonna and whoever. I then would go and say my thank yous for award shows that I hadn't
made it to yet. I had speeches, and I would be in the mirror thanking my mama."
Of course, Elliott doesn't have to have these imaginary conversations with celebs anymore.
She gets to work with them for real.
Missy Elliott probably isn't worried about how she's gonna pay the rent. According to
Celebrity Net Worth, she's reportedly worth $50 million. But long before she had those
millions, she knew she'd be rich one day. As she told Marie Claire in 2019,
"I told my mother, 'I'm going to buy you a house, and I'm going to buy you an elevator
in case your legs start hurting. And she would laugh and be like, 'All right, okay.'"
Little did she know that her daughter would make good on that promise one day. Elliott
tells Marie Claire,
"When I got my first check, I didn't even buy myself a house first. I bought my mother
a house. Put a Bible in the soil and built it from the ground up."
In 2015, Missy Elliott checked a big item off her bucket list: She performed at the
Super Bowl halftime show…one of the biggest stages out there. And although she was extremely
excited to join Katy Perry on stage, she was also incredibly nervous…to the point that
she had to seek medical care the night before. In a 2019 interview with The Guardian, she
revealed,
"I ended up in the hospital for having an anxiety attack. I think any artist who has
had a break such as that one would be anxious."
That anxiety inevitably mounted as it became time to perform.
"Missy Elliott, stealing the show at the Super Bowl, revealing tonight she had never experienced
a panic attack so extreme, saying she prayed all the way up to the stage."
She revealed that Perry had encouraged her to perform new material, but she was unsure
if the crowd would remember her old material, so she held back. Such nervousness isn't unusual
for her, as she told The Guardian:
"I'm always anxious whenever I drop anything because you just never know if they're going
to get it. So I'm always biting my nails and pacing the floor."
Missy Elliott is actually quite shy…a fact that she often mentions in interviews. But
once she gets onstage, her personality changes instantly. In a 2019 interview with The Guardian,
she says,
"I was like that as a child. We would have family reunions and they always wanted me
to get up on the table to perform. After an hour of them begging me, I would finally get
on the table and become this other little kid."
And once she started, it was nearly impossible to get her to stop. That's not really so different
from the way she operates today. She tells The Guardian,
"Once I set foot on the stage, I block out everything. I can be in my own world."
Missy Elliott and Timbaland wrote songs for Destiny's Child when Beyoncé was only 16
years old. As Elliott explains it, Beyoncé stood out without making a lot of noise. In
an interview with The Guardian, she says,
"It wasn't that Beyoncé came in and was loud or 'Look at me, I'm gonna be the star.' She
was very sweet. But when she went in the booth, that's when I knew."
Several years later, Elliott asked Beyoncé to appear on the Under Construction track
"Nothing Out There for Me," and Beyoncé said yes. Elliott explains to The Guardian,
"I said: 'Hey, I want you to rap a little bit.' And she was like: 'Miss, if I sound
crazy, don't put this out.' And I said: 'Trust me, B, I'm not gonna allow you to sound crazy.'
She went in there and now she's rapping better than me!"
Missy Elliott has a super-successful solo career, but there were long stretches when
she didn't put out any new, original work of her own. That doesn't mean she wasn't keeping
busy. She was writing and producing for a whole bunch of artists, a fact that's often
overlooked. In an interview with the Associated Press, she reveals,
"A lot of people don't know a lot of records that I've written or produced, so that's a
highlight for me as a woman. I always said if a man would have done half the records
that I've done we would know about it. But we don't know all the records I've done for
other artists."
So just how many projects has Elliott been involved with? According to Elle, she's written
over 500 songs for everyone from Ciara to Janet Jackson to Mariah Carey. She's also
won an impressive amount of accolades and earned the admiration of everyone from Björk
to Thom Yorke.
"To be recognized for the hard work means more than anybody could know."
Hoping for more new Missy Elliott music? There's a good chance she's got some unreleased material,
since she tends to be a perfectionist. In an interview with the Associated Press, she
revealed:
"I most definitely got some heaters. I'm not going to say when they're coming because,
you know, I always think that's the setup when you say it's coming and you give a date
and you don't drop on that date, oh man! It's like those fans out there will stone you."
Guess we'll have to wait and see when she decides to release some of these gems. In
the meantime, it sounds like Elliott wants to break into another industry. As she told
the Associated Press,
"I want to dip my foot in some acting, and most definitely want to mentor upcoming artists
and give them the wisdom that was given to me."
Missy Elliott has collaborated with the talented Pharrell Williams on a number of different
projects. But when they were just starting out, they faced a number of obstacles and
expected to be rejected over and over again. In a 2019 interview with Elle, he says,
"We came up in a time where we were always told no. Where we were always placed in a
box."
But according to Williams, Elliott wasn't having any of that. Instead, she gleefully
busted down anything that stood in her way, thanks to her brilliant mind and unimpeachable
musical chops. Williams says,
"She defied the physics that were dictated to us. She ignored the gravity of standards
and prejudices and stereotypes. She ignored that gravity."
Quite the compliment, especially coming from Williams.
"You know, just keep going. If I had stopped, I, you know, wouldn't be sitting here right
now."
When Missy Elliott goes into the studio to record her own material, she goes solo every
time. As she tells Elle,
"I'm private about recording, because it allows me to be myself and not have to worry. The
energy has to be right for me. If I'm in that booth and somebody's energy is off and not
really, like, moving their head or something, it may make me start to doubt what I'm doing."
Indeed, Elliott is extremely cautious about how she uses her time in the studio, since
she feels so vulnerable in that environment. As she told Elle,
"You gotta be careful in the energies that you let come in the room, because it will
begin to make you doubt and fear and not want to take that risk."
Meanwhile, she claims it's impossible for the average fan to know just how much work
goes into her music:
"They just see the glory of it, but they don't see what goes on behind the scenes."
One of Missy Elliott's most famous looks is the giant, inflatable black costume she wears
in the video for "The Rain." As you may recall, she wore this wild outfit again at the 2019
MTV Video Music Awards. As it turns out, the getup serves a purpose, beyond simply looking
really cool. In a 2017 interview with Elle, she said,
"To me, the outfit was a way to mask my shyness behind all the chaos of the look. Although
I am shy, I was never afraid to be a provocative woman. The outfit was a symbol of power. I
loved the idea of feeling like a hip-hop Michelin woman. I knew I could have on a blow-up suit
and still have people talking. It was bold and different. I've always seen myself as
an innovator and a creative unlike any other."
Who are we to disagree?
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