The “Lean Back” rapper, 52, described Ashanti, a longtime friend and collaborator, as his “sister” in a clip from an upcoming appearance onRed Table Talk, which PEOPLE is exclusively premiering.
“I’m the brother that looks out for the sisters, but somebody had asked me, ‘Yo, why’d you jump out and defend Ashanti like that?'” Joe said.
He went on to explain that the friend asked if he and Ashanti—who teamed up on the 2002 hit “What’s Luv?"—were romantically involved, as if that would explain Joe’s defense. The question, however, left the star “flabbergasted.”
“This was like, blasphemy or some s—, right?” he said. “‘Cause she’s been my sister for 20-something years. And Irv [is] my brother… I love him… I’m not trying to disrespect Irv. I’m talking about the situation.”
Fat Joe on Red Table Talk.Jordan Fisher
Fat Joe continued: “When somebody I considered one of my brothers was like, ‘Yo, you f—n’ her?’ Are you crazy? That’s my sister. And then I noticed that when I started telling him that that’s my sister, his whole face calmed down and said, ‘Wow, she really is your sister.'”
He claimed that he wrote her song “Happy” after a night they spent together, and that he was later disappointed to find out while at a basketball game that she was dating Nelly.
Fat Joe, Ashanti.Theo Wargo/Getty, Shareif Ziyadat/Getty
“Whatever Irv has with Ashanti is 20 years old. And I know he was making some points that mean a lot to him, his heart and soul, but when you keep ranting about somebody 20 years later, it felt like he’s not over the young lady,” Joe said of the music executive and producer.
“You gotta say your truth… But to go toDrink Champs, and [to] keep calling her a bitch, keep disrespecting…” he said.
In October, Ashanti gave her version of events on Angie Martinez’sIRLpodcast, saying she found it “very weird” that Gotti would “just keep lying.”
“The one thing is that it wasn’t surprising to me, to an extent. I’ve accepted a long time ago that that’s the person that he is,” she said. “But now the world is seeing.”
She continued: “I feel like Irv has flat-out lied about a lot of things… I don’t play in the mud, so I let that sit down there and I’m over here. It’s weird, it’s very weird when you know you’re lying and you just keep lying. And that’s where it becomes a little scary and a little mental.”
The “Foolish” singer said it was true that she was dating Nelly, and that Gotti was “salty” over it, and as a result would not let her come to the studio to record.
“Irv was telling everyone not to record with me. Why do I want to stay in that situation?” she said. “When someone is consistently saying to you ‘You ain’t s—,’ ‘F— you,’ ‘You not even f—ing loyal,’ ‘I made you, ‘I made the world want to f— you.’ He would say, ‘N—s wanna f— you because I made you look like that. I made you f—able.'”
source: people.com
