One of the most famous legends in the history of soul music revolves around singer Al Green, an obsessive lover and a pot of grits. Although the tale has been incorporated into the routines of countless stand-up comedians and has grow to be a popular cultural reference for ladies searching for revenge on their cheating partners (à la Lorena Bobbitt and her the infamous carving knife incident), the true history of the event stays relatively unknown.

By the mid-Seventies, Green was one of the most successful artists in the world. Between 1971 and 1974, he sold over 20 million albums and recorded five more hits: “Tired of Being Alone”, “Call Me”, “Let’s Stay Together”, “You Ought to Be With Me”, and “I’m Still in You” in love.” He was also an undeniable sex symbol, with fans flocking to him in every state.

Recently a the video reappeared from the 1984 documentary “The Gospel According to Al Green,” in which the “Love and Happiness” singer details what happened that day at his Memphis home in 1974.

According to the singer, he dated a 29-year-old woman named Mary Woodson, who confessed that she was in love with him. Unbeknownst to Green, when he met Woodson, she had just left her husband and three children in New Jersey to attend his concert events in New York.

After returning home to Memphis from a performance in San Francisco, Woodson unexpectedly began talking to the star about her feelings. Unfortunately, Green didn’t feel the same way about her, he explained. When he admitted that he liked Woodson and was comfortable with their casual situation, her tone appeared to change from amorous to obsessive.

“She says, ‘Well, I love you and I don’t want to live without you,’” Green recalled. She told him she didn’t wish to “get involved in anything other than a relationship with the star.”

Green replied, “Well, please don’t take a ‘do or die’ attitude about this,” then added, “Man, you know there’s something to live for.”

Green admits he didn’t take her desperation seriously and kept emphasizing that they each had “freedom” to do as they pleased. But Woodson didn’t see it that way. She desired to marry him, regardless that she was already married and had a family in New Jersey.

“She asked me if I’d marry her. I say, “Well, no. I do not think I’m able to get married. It’s 1974. I mean, I’ve been in this music business for 2 or three years, you recognize,” Green recalled.

According to the soul singer, he went upstairs to his house and closed the door to rest. After a while, he got up, went downstairs and saw Woodson boiling water. Despite asking why Woodson was boiling water, she dismissed him.

Green then went to his bathroom to take a bath. While attempting to get out of the bathtub, Woodson forced his way in and poured a pot of hot grits down his back.

“I was wearing this little thin robe. … I am in complete pain and shock,” Green said.

The 11-time Grammy winner said Woodson added grit to boiling water to make it stick together and “stick together.”

“Suddenly I’m full of it. It hurts a lot, I reach back and two fingers are full of skin. I went there, full of cereal, jumped in the shower because every thing hurts, and I called this girl round the corner to assist me because I’m mainly, you recognize, and man, I even have these big boils on my skin. And I’m in total pain. I can not consider the pain,” he explained.

Shortly after dousing the singer with hot porridge, Woodson retreated to the bedroom and shot herself with Green’s .38-caliber pistol.

He added: “Suddenly you hear (makes a gunshot sound). Then it was over. You hear something hit the floor… boom!”

The then 27-year-old, still in pain from his burns, said he asked what the noise was and was told it was gunshots and that his girlfriend was dead. After the shooting, he instructed someone to call police.

“It looks like a suicide,” Inspector Dan Jones said in 1974 in the New York Times. Jones also revealed that three-page farewell letter Words on motel stationery were found in Woodson’s purse. Green suffered second-degree burns on his back, arms and abdomen and required a skin graft.

The publication tells a barely different story than Green.

Police Capt. William Maley said the Arkansas man told police he returned home around 4 a.m. after recording the soundtrack for a recent movie. He was accompanied by one other woman, Carlotta Beth Williams, 21, of Denver.

Green said that shortly after going inside, he went upstairs to take a bath and was getting out of the bathtub when Woodson rushed in, threw a pot of “hot boiling grits” at him, then ran out of the room and shot himself. firearm.

Shortly after this incident, Green later abandoned his secular profession and devoted himself to spreading the gospel.

According to Davin Seay, who collaborated with Green on his 2000 autobiography “Take Me To The River,” the singer doesn’t immediately connect his acceptance of faith with the traumatic events of October 18, 1974.

“He likes to distance the facts about his (religious) conversion from the terrible events of that night,” he added. says Seay, “but I think the incident with Woodson kind of highlighted his need to continue, to close one part of his life and open another.”