Irv Gotti is sharing more intimate details about his relationship with Ashanti.
During his visit to “Drink Champs,” the Murder Inc. boss opened up about how their secret romance inspired Ashanti’s 2002 hit “Happy.”
“It helped her,” said Gotti, who said he bought Ashanti “mad shit” while they were together.
According to Gotti, he came up with the song after they slept together. “We just finished sleeping together or whatever. I’m taking a shower, I’m in the shower, you know a ni**a creative after [sex]. I think of the whole track in the shower.”
He immediately called producer Chink Santana and sang the melody to him. They hit the studio and recorded the beat. “That record came about because of our energy,” he said of the “feel-good, summertime” song.
When N.O.R.E. asked if he misses that energy, he responded, “Not anymore.”
Gotti claims he’s moved on (“I’m way past that”) and doesn’t even peep Ashanti’s “thirst traps” on Instagram. “I honestly don’t give one single f**k,” he said. “I’m Dr. Dre, been there, done that, and the chick sitting next to me, I don’t want to say crushing her, but she’s in her 20s and ridiculously hot.”
“I know that person and I am cool with where we are, with not speaking, not anything,” he added.
For her part, Ashanti has not acknowledged that she was in a relationship with Gotti. The producers behind Irv’s new BET documentary tried to get Ashanti to participate, but she refused several times. “She’s never going to do that because she’s never going to say she was in love with me. She’s never gonna say we was together,” he said.
Gotti says they were together “every day for like two years except the day she’s with Nelly.”
However, he claims that Ashanti had nothing to do with his failed marriage. “She wasn’t responsible for my divorce. I could give you three other chicks that was.”
He does feel some type of way about Ashanti cutting ties with Murder Inc. after the feds raided the label’s offices in 2003 following allegations of money laundering.
“I put that girl on,” said Irv. “So for her to say, I don’t wanna do this no more, I don’t respect it.”
Ja Rule jumped to Ashanti’s defense, noting, “She didn’t get into it for that.”
He plans to tell the rest of the story during the Murder Inc. Records documentary, “The Murder Inc. Story,” which premieres Aug. 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on BET.