NEED TO KNOW
Would Nelly and Ashanti’s marriage be so successful today without some years apart from each other?
The Grammy-winning artists first dated in 2003, broke up a decade later and spent another decade apart before reuniting in September 2023 and quietly marrying three months later. Now, they’re costarring on Peacock’s new reality series Nelly and Ashanti: We Belong Together and opening up about the reason their relationship works.
After their initial breakup, as they recount on the show, the couple hated each other. But it turns out all they needed was “time,” Ashanti tells PEOPLE.
“You grow. It’s about the good outweighing the bad,” explains Nelly. “What you thought mattered a lot, once you go through other scenarios, you realize that’s not really as big of a deal as you thought it would be.”
He adds, “Or you get something that you thought you was missing, and it still doesn’t compensate or fill a void, and you’re like, ‘Damn, I thought that would mean more,’ but that doesn’t. It’s just growth.”
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This week, the rapper also released a country single inspired by the rekindled relationship, “Spin the Block,” featuring the lyrics, “When we said goodbye / Guess it wasn’t what we really meant / ‘Cause mile aftеr mile / I keep passing up places we been / And wе kicked up some dust and got stuck in some mud / But we got back to us in the end / Yeah that look in your eyes looks like this old truck / Like we spinnin’ the block today.”
The sentiment of the song is exactly how Nelly feels. “Everybody don’t get a chance to, if you could say, take a test drive,” he says with a laugh. “It’s like when people say, ‘You should always test drive a car before you buy it.’ I hate to minimize that because this is real life, so you don’t want it to feel like that.”
Ashanti, chuckling, chimes in, “It’s a good metaphor.”
Her husband explains, “It’s almost the defining factor, we had a chance to test drive a relationship to understand that, ‘Yo, that car was the best thing I had riding around that thing, man. Fire it back up, baby.'”
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In addition to welcoming each other back into their lives, the pair now shares a son, KK, 11 months. One thing you won’t see on Nelly and Ashanti: We Belong Together, however, is the baby’s face.
“For me, just as a new mom, being a mama bear, I was like, ‘I’m going to keep my little precious baby close to the vest,'” says Ashanti of the decision.
At the moment, she’s not sure when they’ll share KK’s face with the public. “We’re coming on a year now. His birthday is July 18th. And I don’t know, we got to talk about it and see how you feel,” says the “Always on Time” artist, gesturing to Nelly.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
“He’s so much fun,” Ashanti continues of KK, whose full name is Kareem Kenkaide Hayes. “I want to show him some days because he’s so cute and so much fun, and he’s such a happy baby and smiles and laughs.”
Nelly, on the other hand, isn’t sure they’ll have the choice to reveal KK’s face themselves. “They’re going to catch our ass outside and take a picture,” quips the “Hot in Herre” musician. “That’s what’s going to happen.”
Nelly and Ashanti: We Belong Together is streaming now on Peacock.
