Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
Nelly was performing at a concert in Oakland, CA, last Friday when he brought out a special guest to join him on stage: his former flame Ashanti. The timing of her appearance is all kinds of suspect, though, since it came one day after her former boss, music exec Irv Gotti, told the world it was God’s plan for him to find out Ashanti was hooking up with the St. Louis rapper.
“I could get past you wanting to be with Nelly… Listen, at the time it happens, any man is hurt,” Gotti said on the latest episode of Drink Champs. But podcast host Noreaga joked that Gotti, 52, didn’t sound like a man who really made peace with the former “Princess of Murder Inc.” moving on. “The chick you f-ckin’ are in love with is with this n-gga,” Gotti continued. “You wanna hear how I found out… God wanted me to find out!”
As he animatedly toked up, Gotti said he was at home watching a sports event when he discovered the R&B songstress was now involved with Nelly. “‘Oh, my God, what’s this commotion going on in the stadium?’” he said, imitating the commentator. “‘We just found out what the commotion is. Nelly just walked in with Ashanti.’”
Nelly and Ashanti were rumored to have been dating on and off since 2004 before calling it quits a decade later. However, the duo has always conveniently bumped into each other through the present day, keeping the hopes of an eventual reunion alive.
But two years ago, Gotti insinuated that he and Ashanti were seeing each other while he was estranged from his wife, Debra Lorenzo. “No, Ashanti is not a homewrecker, guys,” he shared on a November 2019 episode of The Wendy Williams Show. “Ashanti had nothing to do with me and Deb. Deb caught me when I was directing ‘I Cry’ in Baltimore. Deb, being the vicious person she is, she came down unannounced, ‘I’m Mrs. Lorenzo, give me the room key.’ The door was latched, but she knows I’m in there. That’s what broke me and Deb up.”
For her part, Ashanti has kept mum on having had any kind of affair with Gotti — but the Internet certainly has not! Take a look at what Twitter is saying about Gotti still carrying a torch for Ashanti all while still having a wife and kids back home.
