I’ve always been a singer, but I was never interested in being a recording artist. It happened when my husband asked me to make a demo tape for his friend and record producer Kenny Gamble. He loved it and asked if I could write some songs with him, so we did that together for about 3 years.
Over the years, Macy Gray has sung backup vocals for several artists including Al Green, Michael Jackson, David Bowie and Prince. She has also volunteered at an AIDS hospice in Los Angeles.
In her early years, Macy Gray was a backing vocalist for Al Green and Michael Jackson. She had provided background vocals for David Bowie’s song “Tonight”.
She has also recorded a duet with Prince, “Love, Sex and Money”. She was selected by Prince to sing on his 2006 album Planet Earth.
Macy Gray is known for her unique vocal rasp and the high tones in her voice which she has been described as sounding like “a human kazoo”,
Although Gray has released two albums, she has primarily been a backing singer for other artists.
Gray married Eric Benet in 1999. They have two sons whom he previously publicly referred to as “brothers.” Gray was diagnosed with progeria, a form of rapidly progressing aging, in 2000. She had the gene for progeria or Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome. It’s a condition that occurs when one of the parents has a chromosome change within the same gene altering it. She was diagnosed with the gene due to having children before the age of 30.
Gray has four sons from her first marriage. Coincidently, Eric Benet had an eight-year-old son, Ziggy (whose real name is Johnnie) from his marriage to actress Kim Fields of TV sitcom Martin when he and Gray married in 1999. Her progeria was diagnosed shortly after her marriage to Benet.