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In a recent interview with PEOPLE to promote her numerous projects, Naturi Naughton shared that she is working on a new album, but that it would address some feelings from the past.
“I’m excited to just tell my story through song because a lot the songs I’d talk about feelings I had after being ousted from 3LW,” she said.
Now, she said she was going to share feelings. She didn’t necessarily say she was going to speak on any of her former group members or talk about negative experiences during her time within the trio. In fact, she said she often thinks back on the positive moments within the group.
“It was a tumultuous breakup. However, I do look back and remember, ‘Oh, I was on the TRL tour, opening up for Destiny’s Child,'” she said. “I think a lot of people that know me now, who even watch Power, don’t realize how long my journey has been. This has been since I was 15 and I’ve been in the business for 20 years. I look back at that experience of being in a girl group, although it had some learning experiences that were growing pains, it just showed me what it takes to make it in this industry.”
But somehow, her words ended up being a problem for former group mate Kiely Williams. The Cheetah Girls star took Naughton’s desire to sing about feelings she dealt with after getting booted from the group as some sort of slight to her. At least, it certainly seemed that way. Williams posted an illustration of the spread I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! that had been revamped to say, “I Can’t Believe You’re Still Bitter!”
When called out for being petty, Williams tried to say in her comments that Naughton was “using me for promo.” Yet, she continued to poke at Naughton, posting a clip of her music video for the 2010 song “H8AZ.” Williams claimed the track was aimed at her former and Adrienne Bailon, and that the star had addressed “her ‘pain'” already.
Williams was basically trying to say that Naughton needed to get over whatever emotions she still harbored about how things worked out with 3LW because to address them would be an inconvenience — to her. Damn, you would think she was the one who got hot chicken thrown at her and kicked out of the group.
And while that chicken incident is something that Williams claims didn’t happen, there was some regrettable treatment of Naughton. There was enough of something unkind to happen that Bailon used the only opportunity she had to sit with her former friend on The Real to show remorse for whatever did occur.
“I genuinely from the bottom of my heart never meant any harm towards you,” Houghton said in 2017. “I think you’re talented and beautiful.”
So if Williams maintains that she didn’t do anything wrong to her former group mate, why is she hollering like a hit dog every time Naughton says something about 3LW? The group is dead. How do you call someone bitter for acknowledging feelings, not incidents, or specific parties involved in said incidents, that they had about a situation? And why is she so upset over some songs nobody has even heard yet?
For someone with clean hands, she’s kicking up trouble like an individual who can’t stand the thought of having to be held accountable for how they treated someone, even when that’s not even being asked of her. But who is surprised? Raven-Symone, whom she had issues with in the past that they recently hashed out, literally had to remind her that “Girl, you messy.” Williams responded by saying, “I don’t try to be. I promise.”
But is this response to everything not the definition of messy? In fact, she actually reads kind of bitter. Naughton has the opportunity often to be interviewed and share whatever feelings she wants to because she’s a consistently working actress. She has many fans. She’s often on TV or at events and has made a name for herself, perhaps the biggest of all the 3LW members, despite being ousted from the teeny-bopper group. So even though Williams’s name was NEVER mentioned in the star’s interview, she chose to make the situation about her. She decided to post multiple things trying to throw shade at Naughton and her music. She mocked the idea that she would have “pain” from feeling forced out a group and disrespected by those in the group, as well as management, because of her looks. She claimed Naughton was using her to help get attention for her new show and music. Kiely Williams spent at least the last day and a half reading through comments (per her Instagram Stories) making a moment she rarely gets now out of making mess. All this because of Naughton’s desire to address a few feelings on a few songs.
The interesting thing about all this though, is that for all of Williams’s issues with her having her feelings about something she went through, Naughton has never had a problem with or cared about the “Spectacular” singer feeling the way she does. She’s never asked for an apology or even desired a peaceful kumbaya moment with Williams or Bailon. She’s just doing her, whether either of them like it or not.
“Unfortunately, we were a Black girl group. Why can’t we just get along? Why can’t we uplift each other? Why can’t we all be beautiful? Why can’t we say positive things? Unfortunately, that was my truth, and I can only tell the truth,” Naughton told us in 2019. “Her saying what she says is of no consequence to me because I lived my truth and I’m standing in that.”
So what’s Kiely’s truth? At this point, she either needs to share that and stand in it, or leave that girl alone and check her own bitterness. Right now, it reeks.
