By Edem Latsu Nukafu
R&B songstress Ashanti is prepared to display her relationship with on-again boyfriend Nelly.
While she stepped on the red carpet of Tuesday’s 2023 MTV Video Music Awards alone, the R&B crooner still found an endearing way to have her substantial other at her side.
Ashanti appeared smitten while carrying around a compact clutch, designed with an early 2000s-era picture of the pair on the front.
Pairing her personalized accessory with equally eye-catching apparel, the “Happy” vocalist slipped on a rhinestone-covered dress with a bold front cut-out that depicted a bejewelled bra in the shape of two turtles.
While Nelly enabled the night to commence with a sterling performance of his 2002 banger “Hot In Here” during the VMAs pre-event, Ashanti gushed about her flame on the red carpet.
“We’re in a great space, everything is positive, we’re having a lot of fun,” she divulged to People magazine.
Months after flirty public appearances together, the ‘Dilenma’ thespian confirmed he and Ashanti were indeed back on during an interview on Philo TV’s “Boss Moves” which came out Monday.
“Yeah, we cool again,” he said. “We cool again. I think it surprised both of us, though. It wasn’t anything that was, like, I don’t think planned. I think we both was pretty much doing what we do. But sometimes being separate, you understand one another more.”
Months before that, Nelly told Entertainment Tonight he had resuscitated his friendship with his then-one-time-honey-bug.
“Time does wonders for a lot of different things,” he explained. “And time is one those things that allows you time to reflect on what’s what, and you get a chance to see things in a different light and see your faults. So I think we both did that, and it’s cool that we just friends.”
- How They Met
Ashanti and Nelly first began dating in 2003 after meeting at a Grammys function. The “Body On Me” collaborators spent the next decade dating on-and-off, until splitting for good in 2013.
Ashanti conversed about feeling “betrayed” by the “Nellyville” rapper during a 2015 interview on The Meredith Vieira programme, where she uttered, “I think sometimes when people have their own insecurities it allows them to act out of character. I’ve been betrayed.”
“Again, you just have to grow,” she went on. “You have to grow up and accept responsibility for the things that you do. I’m not a big fan of people being cowards. I think it’s really important to know yourself and understand what you want and get it. I’m in a different place right now.”
