ILOSM fam,’ allow us to familiarize y’all with yet another beef between members of one of our favorite groups, New Edition. Yep, they’re unfortunately having trouble again and this time it has everything to do with the latest revelations the NE spinoff group, RBRM, revealed in their latest interview. Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky and Mike chopped it up with “The Breakfast Club” about everything, including the current tension between them versus Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill. By the way, Johnny is HEATED over it.
What RBRM Revealed About Ralph & Johnny
During the interview, Ricky Bell had this to say when asked about the current tension between RBRM versus Johnny and Ralph:
“Man, when you’re rockin’ with…guys that you been rockin’ with most of your life, I mean it’s…a marriage. You know, it’s family and sometimes we all agree, we’re all on the same page and sometimes we’re not.”
Ricky then confessed his gratitude for the individual successes they’ve had, because had they been waiting on ALL members to get on the same accord right now, they would not be able to to take care of their families right now:
Ricky Bell: “This might be a lil’ controversial, but thank God for BBD, thank God for Bobby Brown…because if we didn’t have…these other groups, you know, I don’t know what we would do. We’d kind of just be a$$ed out.”
The co-hosts then asked the group if the tension came from the fact that Ralph and Johnny took ownership of the New Edition name, which was unbeknownst to many.
Ronnie DeVoe clarified that it was not solely due to that fact, but also due to Ralph and Johnny not wanting to capitalize off the success of their popular biopic. Mike also said the New Edition name was just “sitting out there” for the taking, because they never took the opportunity to trademark it themselves. He did not blame Ralph nor Johnny for trademarking the group’s name, he simply stated that it was an “oversight” on his and the other members’ parts.
Even though Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike didn’t blame Ralph and Johnny for trademarking the name, they all agreed that they were hurt by the two of them refusing to give fans what they want. Touring with them and capitalizing off the new younger fans they’ve now gained, as a result of the biopic, may have prevented any sort of mess.
Johnny Goes Off
Needless to say, Johnny had more than a few things to say about their interview. In a lengthy series of posts, Johnny blasted off about “discrepancies” within RBRM’s claims. Check out all it below:
Johnny Gill: “I’m just getting home from vacation and I’m…just now seeing a barrage of messages pertaining to the discrepancies surrounding the New Edition trademark. If you notice, Ralph and I have yet to respond to the accusations involving the NE trademark, as airing out internal issues can rarely be seen as integral.”
https://instagram.com/p/Bm3HSDOn1xg/
Johnny continued:
”This matter truthfully has nothing to with the trademark name. We all had a conversation regarding having all ‘ACTIVE [MEMBERS]’ of NE names on it, to protect the integrity of the group. Ralph and I suggested that we put together an agreement amongst all of us, that no one person would never use the name of the group individually, but that it would always be used by a group collectively, so as to avoid any ambiguity by having multiple variations of New Edition in use, FOR THE RECORD, the name has been available for almost 25 YEARS, the group has never owned it’s name. There was never any intention not [to] allow everyone to be a part of owning the name…it was about coming up with an agreement that protects the integrity of the group.
But wait…JG had more to say:
”Again, this is not about the name, That is a matter that could have been reconciled some time ago with an agreement, but instead of hiring an attorney to draw an agreement amongst us, it seems that they’d rather hire a lawyer to fight us over something so simple. The REAL truth behind all of this would be something so devastating to the NE fans. And thus, Ralph and I have decided to take the high road regarding this matter, while other members continue to behave in a way that’s respectful to our legacy when we all know the truth.
Read the rest of what Johnny had to say below…be sure to swipe left.
https://instagram.com/p/Bm3HSDOn1xg/
Overall, we just hope that one day we will soon get to witness a once-and-for-all ‘kum-ba-yah’ moment amongst ALL SIX New Edition members. Preferably that’ll be before their crisp choreography routines and classic performances get diminished to nothing more than just old school memories.
