Keri Hilson says she was forced to record the infamous diss aimed at Beyoncé that nearly derailed her career before it took off.
The seasoned singer stopped by The Breakfast Club on Wednesday, April 9, to talk about her return to music following a 7-year hiatus. During the conversation, the crew had to ask about Hilson's thoughts about her "Turnin' Me On (Remix)" featuring T-Pain & Lil Wayne, in which she seemingly shaded Beyoncé. According to the "Pretty Girl Rock" singer, Hilson didn't write the problematic verse but she sang it after her producer Polow Da Don gave her an ultimatum.
"[Polow] had another writer in our camp at the time," Hilson explained. "He had her write this verse so he played it for me like this is the remix. I'm thinking I'm coming in to write a remix to 'Turnin' Me On'. The whole time I had been writing concepts but I come into the studio and he plays me this verse and I'm like automatically I'm like 'I'm not saying that.' That was my position."
"So I tried to fight him on it and I began writing my own," she continued. "That's what I did with my time there but he... I want to be careful with the word I use... it was quite forceful, you know what I mean? In an executive artist way only... involving others and kinda of threatening my career in a real sense because my album wasn't out yet so it was like 'You're not coming out if you don't do this.' And the mistake that I made was not continuing to fight but I was in tears and I was adamant that I did not want to do that."
Keri Hilson's smash hit "Turnin' Me On" appeared on her debut album In A Perfect World... in 2009 but the remix debuted on DJ Greg Street’s Sertified Worldwide that same year. In her verse, Hilson sang, "Your vision cloudy if you think that you're the best/You can dance, she can sing/But she need to move it to the left, left/She need to go have some babies/She needs to sit down, she fake/Them other chicks ain't even worth my time to talk about." Fans immediately believed she was talking about Beyonce.
Ester Dean was credited for writing Hilson's verse. Soon after the clip went viral, Dean hopped into the comment section of The Breakfast Club and reacted to Hilson's story. See what she had to say and watch the entire interview below.