There’s no question that Chaka Khan has proven time and time again, that she is not the one to be messed with. She’s a 5’4″ firecracker and makes it clear that nobody bett’ NOT play with her or her family. Other than that, she’s a really classy lady though.
According to what Chaka revealed, there was one time when she had to put her classy persona to the side and let her inner firecracker emerge when some drama allegedly went down in the bathroom of a recording studio between herself, her then-husband Richard Holland, and Rufus drummer, Andre Fischer back in the day.
Richard Holland (who was married to Chaka from 1976-1980) walked into a studio session while Andre was listening to a playback recording of Richard’s song, “Better Days,” which was going to be released on a new Rufus ft. Chaka Khan album. Richard thought the recording sounded great and stated that to Andre. Richard then apparently went to another room to go chill out for a minute and that’s when Andre (the second from the left in the above photo) walked in a few minutes later and asked Richard (not pictured) ‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ Richard said ‘sure’ and they proceeded to take their talk to the restroom down the hall for privacy…then things quickly got ugly.
https://youtu.be/QApFKrHQxIs?t=8
Allegedly Andre went all the way off on Richard, stating something like “Don’t you ever tell me what to do!” He then allegedly punched Richard in the head, but Richard couldn’t completely defend himself, given that he was 5’9″ and about 140 pounds, while Andre was 6’5″ weighing about 350 pounds.
Now when Chaka ran into the restroom allegedly all hell broke loose. At first no one knew what was going on between Andre and Richard, but once they heard his screams all the way from down the hall, Chaka instinctively rushed the scene. She went upside Andre’s head with a Courvoisier bottle! Needless to say, Andre was furious and turned around and allegedly started beating her too…that’s when two members of their entourage stepped in to break them up.
Chaka said “Richard wanted to sue Andre, but our manager talked him out of it because it would have been bad publicity for the group. Andre was soon out of Rufus and I never spoke to him again.”
Chaka also alleged that wasn’t the only time folks had to yank Andre off of her. She said it happened once before while she was pregnant. Chaka didn’t back down from Andre when they had an argument at a club. She said “Andre literally jumped all over me, despite me being pregnant. If the band wasn’t there to pull him off of me, I don’t want to think what might have happened.”
Chaka’s close friend, Natalie Cole, later married Andre Fischer in 1989, which allegedly caused she and Natalie to not be as close as they once were during that time. Natalie also stated in her book, that she too, allegedly experienced consistent domestic abuse at the hands of Andre. They divorced in 1995. Mr. Fischer has never spoken publicly about any of these allegations as far as we know.
[Source: “Chaka! Through The Fire” by Chaka Khan and Tonya Bolden]
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, having a great talent and acquiring a certain level of greatness in your life does not make one perfect, it simply makes one a driven, talented, flawed human being, who had the will to beat the odds and stay determined to make their dream a reality…but again, it does not mean that one is a perfect human. That will probably never exist and therefore we will never expect otherwise from our Old School celebs. One thing I’ve learned from this story is to never mess with Chaka…especially when a whine bottle is nearby…I kid, I kid…LOL. Seriously though, it was probably best that both she and Natalie distanced themselves from those allegedly violent situations…good for them.
-ILoveOldSchoolMusic, Old School news with a new point of view
