'Love & Hip Hop' Canceled After 15 Years, Social Media Conflicted

It’s a wrap. After 15 drama-filled years, VH1’s reality show Love & Hip Hop is over. Paramount announced the show’s cancellation this week, saying there would be a six-episode farewell series, Love & Hip Hop: The Final Chapter, coming sometime this fall.

“The Love & Hip Hop franchise has always been about the people,” Lashan Browning, founder and CEO of Antoinette Media and executive producer of Love & Hip Hop: The Final Chapter, said. “The incredible talent who trusted us with their real lives, the exceptional producers who poured themselves into every storyline, my extraordinary team at Antoinette Media who showed up and showed out season after season, and the viewers who were here for all of it. Their dedication is why this franchise resonated for so many years.”

The reality series was created by longtime entertainment manager Mona Scott-Young, who was inspired by another reality series starring rapper Jim Jones and his long-suffering fiancée Christy Lampkin. From there, Scott-Young thought a show starring other women in Hip-Hop could be a hit.

And she was right.

The show debuted in 2011 in New York. From there it expanded into Hollywood, Atlanta and Miami, with fan faves and controversial castmembers including Joseline Hernandez and her boyfriend, producer Stevie J., Ray J. and his wife, Princess Love, Scrappy and his mother, Momma Dee, Cardi B, Omarion and his girlfriend, Apryl Jones, rapper Waka Flocka Flame and his wife, Tammy, Atlanta-based rapper Rasheeda Frost and her husband, Kirk Frost, among others.

In its heyday, it spawned social media chatter and memes as its personalities got into their share of fights, dramas, makeups and breakups, and controversial situations. Out of everyone who participated in the show, it was Cardi B who benefited most, becoming one of Hip-Hop’s contemporary superstars after her debut on the show in 2015. She appeared on Seasons 6 and 7 before departing to become a solo artist with the success of her song “Bodak Yellow.”

Singer K. Michelle made it to The Real Housewives franchise from her appearances on Love & Hip-Hop. And it helped boost the careers of Hip-Hop artists like Yung Joc and Soulja Boy.

The news of Love & Hip Hop‘s cancellation was met with a collective shrug from the fanbase that had once made it popular.

“I haven’t paid attention to that show in years,” Michelle “ATLien” Brown, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Brown did LHHA recaps on her Straight From The A blog. She now covers The Real Housewives of Atlanta on her YouTube platform. “I initially bought into it. It was great to see Lil Scrappy and others do something different. But it eventually got old and stale and tired.”

See social media’s reaction to the show ending below.