The media has mostly shown Nelly and Ashanti’s reunion as a good thing. In general, people are so excited that the pair have spun the block. It’s been said that they’ve finally found their happily ever after.
But others are worried that this relationship might not be as picture-perfect as it looks. There’s a theory that Ashanti might be turning a blind eye to some obvious red flags. People are concerned that she could get hurt again.
According to Us Weekly, the couple officially announced that they were back together in September 2023. Just months later, they hinted that they could be pregnant when they attended the 2023 Black & White ball.
Ashanti put her hand on her belly, and then Nelly placed his hand on it, too. It quickly sparked the rumors that she was expecting.
Some of Ashanti’s followers have expressed their concerns that things have been moving a little too quickly between them. They speculated that one reason the couple was rushing things was because Ashanti really wanted to have kids.
In 2022, she told People Magazine that she planned on having kids in the near future. She recently told Essence that motherhood was something she had looked forward to. People are now asking if she’s rushed into having a baby too soon with Nelly, given that they’ve only been back together for a short amount of time.
Outlets like Pulselive called the announcement of their unborn child was seen as a hopeful symbol of their enduring connection. Reddit users pointed out that Nelly had hurt Ashanti in the past and that it could end badly for her.
Ashanti Never Imagined Reconciling with Nelly
Ashanti and Nelly rarely spoke about their relationship the first time around. They hardly ever spoke about why they broke up, either. But Ashanti dropped some hints over the years, and what she’s said made some people believe that Nelly was to blame.
Even those in her close circle were reportedly shocked when the couple got back together. In 2023, a source told Us Weekly that a few years earlier, Ashanti never would’ve imagined reconciling with Nelly.
She gave a rare interview on the Meredith Vieira show in 2015 where she opened up about why things didn’t work out with Nelly. Meredith commented on how the couple weren’t together at that point.
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She asked her guest why she thought it was difficult to trust someone in a relationship. Ashanti explained that sometimes when people have their own insecurities, it allows them to act out of character. She said that she’d been betrayed and that she was not a big fan of people being cowards.
A few years later, Ashanti was less vague about who she’d felt betrayed by when she was talking to the crowd at one of her shows. Cheat Sheet reported that while on stage in 2018, Ashanti told the audience that she’d been betrayed before, publicly.
Then someone from the crowd reportedly shouted: “F Nelly!” Ashanti pointed towards them and responded by saying: “Word.” The outlet claimed that this was how the singer seemingly confirmed to the public that the reason their relationship ended was because of something Nelly had done to her.
Nelly Didn’t Have Plans to Get Married
There was also speculation that she wrote a song about Nelly after seeing him with his new girlfriend after they broke up, according to Buzzfeed. Ashanti had a song called She Can’t on her 2014 album, Braveheart, which came out about a year after the pair had split.
The lyrics included lines like: “You said there’ll be no more mistakes. Yeah, you said, you said you was sorry. It won’t happen again and you came running back.”
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Reddit users expressed that Ashanti has sold herself short by getting back together with Nelly. They pointed out that he’s always been someone who’s afraid of commitment. One person wrote that Ashanti was a placeholder until Nelly found the one he really wanted to be with and that he would drop her once he met another one.
A report by People Magazine revealed that Nelly once opened up to RapUpTV about why he didn’t have plans to get married in the early 2010s.
He shared that he was not a person who wanted to be married more than once. He was also not a person who wanted to be in a relationship more than once. When the interviewer asked him if he had plans to marry Ashanti, he dodged the question by saying that he was married to his work and that he and Ashanti were friends.
Ashanti Is Ready to Settle Down
There’s been talk about how he also had trouble committing to his ex-girlfriend of seven years, Shantel Jackson. In a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight, he was asked if marriage was in the cards for him and Shantel.
Nelly gave an ambiguous answer. He just told the reporter: “We’re working towards it… When we know, I’ll tell you.” Shantel revealed on her social media that the couple had broken up a year later.
Ashanti was pretty vocal about wanting to settle down and start a family even back when she was still in a relationship with Nelly the first time around. A report by Sowetan Live in 2008 revealed that she’d once spoken about her hopes of having a big family.
She told Sister 2 Sister magazine: “I love kids. I definitely want to get married… I’m so family-oriented. I want the big wedding, I want the long marriage, I want kids.”
A lot of people in the online community have also raised their concerns about Ashanti getting back together with someone who’s been accused of harming women. The Telegraph reported that in October 2017, Nelly was arrested after a 22-year-old college student alleged that he’d taken advantage of her on his tour bus.
Nelly denied the accusation and said the student was motivated by greed and vindictiveness. The case was dropped a week later because she wouldn’t testify against him. Her lawyer stated that she felt she could not stand up against a celebrity.
Later that year, the student sued Nelly for harm and defamation, since he’d called her accusation a lie. In 2018, he countersued her, and they eventually ended up settling the lawsuit.
Nelly Has a History of Infidelity
That wasn’t the only thing he was accused of. According to the Daily Beast, a lawsuit was also brought against him by two anonymous women from the UK, who claimed that Nelly was also extremely inappropriate with them.
The lawsuit claimed that in 2016 and 2017, he’d invited the women to hang out after his shows, and gave them unwanted advances. After one of the British women also failed to testify, the investigation stopped.
Nelly publicly gave his thanks to the UK police for thoroughly investigating the accusations. He said that he stood with women and ‘REAL’ survivors.
Something else that raised eyebrows is that when the allegations against him came out, he was reportedly still in a relationship with Shantel. The Jasmine Brand claimed that according to police documents, Nelly admitted to consensually being with the 22-year-old student. Which technically would’ve meant that he was unfaithful to Shantel if what he reportedly revealed in the documents was true.
This has been considered to be another red flag in his current relationship with Ashanti. Cheat Sheet pointed out that there were allegations of cheating on Nelly’s end the first time he and Ashanti split.
A New Start for the Couple
Some online users believe that Nelly deserves a second chance, though. Nelly himself has talked about how having time apart from each other helped him and Ashanti come to some realizations. He said he was guilty of not admitting when he was in the wrong the first time they were together.
An article by Baller Alert revealed that when Nelly did an episode of Boss Moves, he shared that after separating, they got to understand one another more. He explained that everyone could be defensive sometimes in their own relationships.
Nelly told the hosts: “We know we wrong, but we going to stand on it. But we all a victim to that.” During her interview with Essence in April 2024, Ashanti revealed that not only were the couple expecting a baby, but they had also gotten engaged.
