D’Angelo’s former manager revealed in the August 2008 issue of Spin magazine that the video for “Untitled” was to blame for the downward spiral of both his career and personal life.

I blamed Angie Stone for giving him the “until you do right by me everything you think about is going to fail” curse but I will leave the rest of that conversation for another day.

“We couldn’t get through one song before women would start to scream for him to take off something” says Hargrove. “It wasn’t about the music. All they wanted was for him to take off his clothes.”

The cat calls had an undeniable effect on D’Angelo. “He’d get angry and started breaking sh*t,” Thompson remembers. “The audience thinking, “f*ck your art, I wanna see your ass!” made him angry”.

For D’Angelo, who, as Trenier puts it, “isn’t a sexy dude” but a “real musician who wears glasses and plays video games,” the objectification appeared to do lasting damage.

“I didn’t realize how vulnerable he was or how deep his issues ran.” Says Leeds. “He’s cursed now with fretting over how much of his fan base is because of how he looked as opposed to his music. It took away his confidence, because he’s not convinced why any given fan is supporting him.

“I feel really guilty, because that was never the intention” Trenier says. “Untitled wasn’t supposed to be his mission statement for Voodoo. I’m glad the video did what it did, but he and I were both disappointed because, to this day, in the general public’s memory, he’s the naked dude.” [source via NB]

Also Read: You And I Drove D’Angelo To Drink [Soul Bounce]