Kiely Williams: ‘I Do NOT Have a Lisp’!

3LW‘s introductory hit, 2000’s ‘No More (Baby I’ma Do Right),’ may have put Kiely Williams on the map alongside group members Adrienne Bailon and Naturi Naughton, but for Williams the blessing has also come as an enduring curse.

Over the last few years, the song’s resurged in popularity – not because of renewed interest but due to ridicule of her singing (namely the line ‘playa please’).

Fed up with the jokes, the now 34-year-old – hot on the promo trail for her new BET reality show ‘The Encore’ (which premiered June 9) – took to our friends at ET Online recently to combat the longstanding rumor that she has a speech impediment.

Hear it from her lips inside:

During the interview with resident anchor Deidre Behar, Kiely not only revealed she doesn’t have a lisp but also the reason why her certain phrases from the songs (i.e. ‘promises promises’) sounded like they did.

“A really long time ago, ancient times, before there was Pro Tools where you could just auto-tune on the machine, there was a plug-in and it was in a studio. It’s a plug-in box and it was called an Antares,” Williams explained to ET’s Deidre Behar. “And this machine, like all of new technology was a little hinky. And when they went to mix my vocals, the Antares corrected the notes, but gave me a lisp. There’s no other explanation for it. If you turned the Antares off, I didn’t have a lisp, but all my notes were wrong. So they were like, ‘Which one is better?'”

While she doesn’t take the ridicule personally, she doesn’t think it’s ok to poke fun at people who are suffering from speech impediments.

“I have two separate feelings. Taking myself out of the equation, when people call me names or make fun of it, it doesn’t personally affect me, because I don’t have a lisp,” she continued. “However, people with actual speech impediments, I don’t think it’s funny to poke fun at that. They do struggle with it, all the time. It’s not something that’s funny. They’re trying to communicate the same way that you are. So on that level, I’m like, ‘That’s not cool. Just stop.’ When it’s directed towards me … I wish people would stop because they hear me talk all the time.”