Ashanti has been on a mini press tour, and she’s answering the sensitive questions about her relationship with Irv Gotti and her decision not to participate in the recently Murder Inc. documentary.
In an interview with Ebro Darden, Ashanti says she did not want to be associated with the documentary because of Irv’s negative behavior.
“I think that once someone goes after you and attacks you and intentionally tries to consistently hurt you, at some point, you have to protect yourself. I just felt like I don’t want to put myself in that space and energy because it was just really really negative,” Ashanti says.
She also revealed that the reason for Irv’s behavior was his bitterness towards her and their relationship, which broke down after she requested the opportunity to buy her master, which he declined.
“I think it is a combination of him being bitter because of the business and how things happened in his mind you know what I’m saying. After a while, you would assume that a grown man kinda understands what it is and moves on, Gotta Move On,” she says, plugging her remix of Diddy and Bryson Tiller’s track.
“I just feel like he’s not in or he wasn’t in a good place and it’s unfortunate because I feel like Murder Inc. deserved an amazing story, an amazing platform for everybody to be a part of,” Ashanti added.
Irv has been angry at Ashanti after she announced plans to re-record the albums that he produced. In her interview, Ashanti was also asked about her current relationship with Irv Gotti, noting that he was open to receiving an apology, but she wasn’t interested in anything further with him.
In an interview with Drink Champs earlier this year, Irv Gotti claimed that he had a sexual relationship with Ashanti and even claimed that the song “Happy” was created after they copulated.
In a separate interview with Angie Martinez, Ashanti also shared how Irv Gotti was verbally abusive to her and even tried to take credit for her sexuality.
“You ain’t sh*t. I made you, I made the world want to f**k you. He would say ‘n**gas want to f**k you because I made you look like that, I made you f**able’ in those exact words,” Ashanti said.
“I definitely feel like manipulation played a heavy part into me and Irv’s situation. He would say stuff like ‘no one wants to record with you, nobody really f**k with you like that… on one hand, he would make it feel like ‘family’ and then on the other hand he would make it like ‘nobody likes you’…It was hard because that gullible little Suzy,” she said, referring to herself, implying that she believed everything that Irv said.
Later, Ashanti also spoke about the supposed relationship with Irv Gotti.
“I think that sometimes when you may think that it’s something, but the other person knows that it’s not and you manifest this thing into something big and it’s really not that and then that person realizes finally that it is not that. It turns them into a completely different person,” she told Martinez.
“Irv has flat-out lied about a lot of things, and the crazy thing is when we were in a good space and positive space… pillow talk is a dangerous thing and there are many things that I know and for a long and probably forever, I don’t have the desire to expose certain things, I’m happy, I’m in a different space,” the artist shared.
In her interview, Ashanti also accused Irv of “cheapening” the Murder Inc. brand with his rants and disrespect towards her.
“It’s weird where you are lying and you know you are lying, it becomes a little mental,” she said about Irv’s claim that she did not support him during the Murder Inc. trial.
