Immature’s Young Rome Says Singer Brandy Made Him Blind In One Eye: I had to have several surgeries!
Immature’s Young Rome Says Singer Brandy Made Him Blind In One Ye: I had to have several surgeries!
Nineties R&B group Immature is back on the road again! Marques “Batman” Houston, Jerome “Young Rome” Jones, and Kelton “LDB” Kessee recently opened up about their legacy, the #TB Tour, how they really feel about B2K, and why Jerome started wearing his iconic eye patch.
Jerome says that a backstage incident with singer Brandy injured his eye so badly that he started wearing the eye patch:
“Jerome: That’s a true story. It was a little accident when we was kids. We should’ve listened! We had just done a performance for Lou Rawls’ telethon- just horsing around, playing…Her and Half Pint had got into it, she got up [and] she had a book in her hand. Just tossed it back not thinking I was that close, and cut my retina- detached it…”
See the clip below.
Immature’s long legacy includes being responsible for forming the group, B2K:
“Kelton: We put B2K together.
Marques: There’s a lot of trends that we started back in the day. There’s a lot of things that you don’t get credit for…I don’t believe credit is important. Just knowing you could be a part of something big- even ‘You Got Served!’ That completely created a whole craze of dance shows, and dance movies.”
Unfortunately, they share that the relationship between the two groups is not in a good place:
“Marques: Actually, no. Everything’s not good. We talk to Book all the time. I haven’t talked to O[marion] in a minute. And it’s not that it’s bad or good, everybody grew apart.
Jerome: Everyone went their separate ways.
Marques: Their dynamic is very different. We are actually friends. They’re co-workers.”
Immature explained how their group spawned a number of other big name celebrities’ careers:
“Marques: [Chris] Stokes was starting a group back in the day. Rome was one of the original members. They found me…I went to school with Half Pint- the Asian guy. Originally before Half Pint, it was supposed to be Kelton. I literally walked down the street to Kelton’s house, and he was at a baseball game. So I was like, ‘Oh, my boy Kelton wasn’t home. Let me go to Half Pint’s.’ So that’s what happened.
Kelton: I never knew anything about the group beforehand anyway, because he was coming to present the opportunity.
Marques: So he [Kelton] was in the band, and when things didn’t work out with Half Pint, we said, ‘We can move Kelton up to the front.’ Ray J was in the band! We did a talent show with Brandy at the Palace, and she’ll argue to this day that she won! Chris got her her deal at Atlantic.”
Are you checking Immature out on the #TB Tour? It kicks off on November 15th in St. Louis.
Written by Miata Shanay