smoking on our ex pack

Ashanti and Nelly Succumb to the Twenty-Year Trend Cycle

Photo: Johnny Nunez/WireImage

It’s officially 2003: the VMA’s were good, and Nelly and Ashanti are back together. Ashanti attended the Video Music Awards in support of her once and future man, carrying a clutch decorated with a photo of the pair at the 2003 VMAs. Ashanti confirmed to E! News that the two were together again. When asked if they were in a relationship, she laughed then replied “I mean…yeah.†Nelly also spoke on the relationship on Boss Moves with Rasheeda. “We cool again,†Nelly said. “I think it surprised both of us. It wasn’t anything that was planned.â€

According to People, Nelly and Ashanti first went public as a couple in 2003, at the Grammy Awards nominations presser. “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,†Ashanti said on Behind the Music. Their meeting was captured by press. “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.†They were rumored to have broken up in 2010. But Nelly wouldn’t cop to the breakup, since that would be a tacit admission they’d ever been together. “To me, our relationship has been based in the media because there’s nothing we ever said about it,†he said on VladTV. “People tend to put us together and then they split us up whenever they feel… we find it funny. We just look and whatever the media says, I guess we roll with!†Time to roll with it again, it seems!

Ashanti and Nelly Succumb to the Twenty-Year Trend Cycle