Carnie Wilson opened up about the tensions that led to Wilson Phillips’ split in 1993
Carnie said she would ask Wendy and Chynna if they were getting back together “every year” after they split
Carnie recalled crying on the phone to their producer after the group parted ways
When Wilson Phillips broke up in the ’90s — it was “ego” that got in the way.
On Wednesday, April 30, Carnie Wilson, 57, appeared on an episode of The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan and revealed what ultimately led to their split in 1993.
Carnie, who formed Wilson Phillips with sister Wendy Wilson and Chynna Phillips Baldwin in 1986, began by opening up about their group dynamic. “The three of us have been friends since birth. We couldn’t come together with the pressure. Musically, we could come together, but spiritually and individually, inside of us was the egos.”
Things got “competitive” in the group. When they first got together with producer Richard Perry, who played a significant role in their success early on, their group name was “The Chynna Phillips Group” — and this “really pissed” Carnie off.
“I thought to myself, ‘Well wait a minute here. There would be no group if I hadn’t gotten us together and had that love of harmony and said, ‘Get in here and sing.’ And there wouldn’t be a group if Owen [Elliot] hadn’t said, ‘Let’s record together.’ I mean, there were five years where we didn’t see Chynna,” she said.
Related: Carnie Wilson Says She Used to ‘Get Butterflies’ Around Late Beach Boy Uncle Dennis Wilson: ‘Mysterious, Sexy Man’
Meanwhile, Carnie told Corgan that she always loved “an ensemble” and “collective thinking… love… [and] energy.”
“I feel like that’s the best way to get the most out of it. You want to be a solo artist? Great. But when it’s the three of us, it’s the three of us. And clearly the proof is in the pudding. That’s what made the group, is the three,” she said of the group, which released two studio albums before they split: a self-titled debut album in 1990 and Shadows and Light in 1992.
“So when there was this, ‘I want to stick out, I want to go solo,’ yeah, it upset me,” she continued, referencing Chynna’s decision to go solo after the group split. “I had to accept it. I remember crying on the phone to [producer] Glen [Ballard] saying, ‘How could somebody walk away from something so successful?’… It hasn’t ended. I couldn’t get over, I couldn’t get past the shock.”
After the group parted ways, Carnie said she would asked Chynna, 57, and Wendy, 55, if they were going to get back together “every year” — but the answer was always “no.”
Carnie, Wendy and Chynna’s story began after their parents, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas, hit it off at a basketball game in 1968.
Related: Chynna Phillips Shares Clip of Wilson Phillips Reunion at Owen Elliot-Kugell’s Book Signing: ‘Born to Sing Together’
“[Our dads] formed a really close bond, and of course me and Carnie and then Wendy all formed a very close bond as little girls,” Chynna told Rolling Stone in 2020. “I used to go over to their house almost every single weekend, and we would play and sing and dance and put on shows and hang out together and swim. They became just a real fabric of my life.”
After their split in 1993, they reunited in 2004 to record California. Then, in 2010, they reunited with Ballard for their first Christmas album, Christmas in Harmony. Two years later, they recorded Dedicated, a covers album showcasing songs by Beach Boys and Mamas & the Papas.
Now, the women of Wilson Phillips continue to perform live together, with their latest performance at an afterparty for 90s Con at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Conn., in March.
Read the original article on People
