Nelly explains why he married Ashanti after she became pregnant

Nelly and Ashanti hadn’t talked about marriage before she was pregnant with their child, but afterward, he immediately knew that was what he wanted.

“I was like, yo, you know, let’s just knock this out, because we’re going to be doing so much and everything’s moving so fast,” Nelly, who recently celebrated his first wedding anniversary with the singer-actress, said this week on the Bootleg Kev podcast. “And I didn’t want her to be a baby mama. We already knew where we were in life and, you know, if we’re back like this, this must be what this supposed to be.”

Hear the comments below, at about 5:14.

Nelly and Ashanti met in 2003 and were rumored to be dating over the next decade until breaking up in 2013. But they coupled up again in 2023 and were married on Dec. 27 of that year, according to documents obtained by PEOPLE. They welcomed their son, Kareem Kenkaide “KK” Hayes, on July 18.

“Any relationship man,” the “Hot in Herre” singer continued, “I base any relationship on, ‘Does this person bring more good to your life than bad?’ Any relationship. It could be your relationship with your parents, your kids, your homie. Does this person bring more good to your life than bad? And if they do, then great. But if they don’t, then you know that you might need to remove this person from being able to get some of your time. And that’s what I think, for me and her, after we got a chance to look, and was like, yo, a lot of this s— that we was bitching about, we cool.”

Ashanti said she had been taken aback by the reunion.

“Never in a million years did I think we would be here,” she told ET in June. “Ten years ago — maybe yes — but after our breakup, you know, I didn’t even think we’d ever have a conversation again.”

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The “Foolish” singer said her relationship with Nelly had improved this time around.

“The growth has been superb on both ends,” Ashanti told the outlet. “We are both at a place where like, before, sometimes we would argue and walk out, slam the door, and not talk for a few days. Now, it’s kind of like, ‘All right, you good?’ You know, ‘Give me a kiss goodbye,’ and it’s over. You know, it’s not like holding on and bickering, and we find out what the resolution is. We apologize.”