On Thursday (Jan. 18), Ja Rule appeared on “Tamron Hall Show” to talk about his long-awaited eighth studio LP, his upcoming European tour and more. In a short clip from said interview, host Tamron Hall asked the Queens legend if he was surprised about Ashanti and Nelly’s red-hot reunion.
“Not really. [Ashanti] and my wife, they do their ha-ha and ke-keing,” he said about his longtime friend and chart-topping collaborator. “You can tell, sometimes, when women… They know they want that old thing back. I don’t want to blow sis up, but the chemistry was there. The chemistry was there. And I think, for both of them, it came back quick. So, I think they missed each other. It had to be that way because the way they just clicked and came back so fast.” Rule then contributed it all to it being “spin the block season,” a concept that was met with laughter from the audience.
Ashanti previously recalled how she and Nelly first met during a 2011 episode of VH1’s “Behind The Music.” “The first time I met Nelly, he asked me for my autograph, but I think he was being sarcastic, and I remember writing it down on the program,” she explained about the moment, which took place back in 2003. “That picture has been in so many publications as something else, but it all started out as a joke. For the record, it took him a long time to get my number.”
The two would remain an item for several years until an apparent breakup behind the scenes. They eventually reconnected on stage during Ja Rule and Fat Joe’s Verzuz battle in 2021. Then, in June 2023, Nelly and Ashanti appeared on the red carpet together at Pierre “P” Thomas’ birthday event in Atlanta — the first time they’d done so since 2012.