Mary J. Blige 'inspired' by Beyonce's family

Mary J. Blige wishes she had Beyonce's stable upbringing, insisting her life and career would have been less rocky if her parents had stayed together.

The Crazy In Love hitmaker is famously close to her parents, Mathew and Tina Knowles, who helped manage her career from her early days in Destiny's Child.

Mary J. Blige, whose father left her mother when she was four, admits she envies the singer's happy childhood as her own was so drastically different, and she believes she would have thrived if her parents had not divorced.

Mary J. Blige tells CNN's Piers Morgan, "You gotta look at a life like that (Beyonce's), with a mother and a father and a child and they're raising and they're in the music business with her where there is just so many vultures and people who don't ever tell you the truth... and to look at her life, and to look at how graceful and beautiful and what a lady she is, it just inspired me.

"It made me a little sad because I wish I had that growing up, I wish my mom and dad had been together and I wish that they could have saw (sic) me through the music business and managed me and who knows how much further I would be and how much hell I wouldn't have gone through."

Beyonce's parents split in 2009 following allegations that Mathew Knowles fathered a love child with another woman.