August Alsina
August Alsina is getting candid about his alleged romance with Jada Pinkett Smith and interestingly, it looks like he got a green light from Will Smith.
Relationship rumours have swirled around the pair for quite some time, with some convinced that Alsina and Jada had a secret affair. Alsina’s 2019 track “Nunya” fueled the speculation, as he included the lines: “You got me feeling like it was an act, you’re just an actress/Putting on a show ’cause you don’t want the world to know.” The track’s official video also featured a shot of a text message from a love interest listed as “Koren,” which just so happens to be Jada’s birth-given middle name.
Alsina would go on to deny the relationship rumours and insisted “Nunya” was not about the Girls Trip actress.
“To Clarity, The Song is not about Jada. It’s simply JUST A SONG, & a free artistic expression of a made-up narrative already put in place by its ORIGINAL format,” he wrote on Instagram, as reported by XXL. “Thankyou for all of your love around the music & more is to come but please know that Me & my BEST (@jadapinkettsmith )are good!!! & We will always be, 4Life!”
Alsina is now changing his tune.
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During the promotional run for his new album The Product III: stateofEMERGEncy and its accompanying five-part docuseries, the singer sat down with Angela Yee to discuss his controversial relationship with Jada. Alsina claimed he and the actress were romantically involved, and that he only decided to speak his truth in an attempt to clear his name.
“People can have whatever ideas they like. But what I’m not OK with is my character being in question …” he said at around the 16:30 mark. “Contrary to what some people may believe, I’m not a troublemaker. I don’t like drama. The drama actually makes me nauseous. I also don’t think that it’s ever-important for people to know what I do, who I sleep with, who I date, right? But in this instance, there are so many people who are side-eyeing me … I’ve lost money, friendships, relationships behind it. And I think it’s because people don’t necessarily know the truth. But I’ve never done anything wrong. I love those people (the Smiths) … They are beautiful people.”
Alsina went on to say the relationship wasn’t a secret affair, suggesting Jada and her husband, Will Smith, had an open marriage.
“I actually sat down with Will and had a conversation … He gave me his blessing,” he said. “And I totally gave myself to that relationship for years of my life, and I truly and really, really, deeply loved and have a ton of love for her (Jada). I devoted myself to it. I gave my full self to it. So much so that I can die right now, and be OK knowing that I fully gave myself to somebody … Some people never get that in this lifetime.”
He continued: “This conversation is difficult because [it’s] hard for people to understand. But once it starts to affect me and my livelihood, I have to speak up about my truth … Walking away from it butchered me … It almost killed me. Not almost. It did—it pushed me into being another person … It broke me down … It probably will be the hardest thing I ever had to experience in this lifetime. It’s difficult because I never want to be the person to cause confusion or step on toes, but I want to honour myself and I want to honour my authenticity. And if honouring my authenticity means you hate me, stone me, shoot me, crucify me, whatever, bury me an honest man.”
Alsina and Yee went on to discuss another heartbreaking moment in the artist’s life: the loss of his sister, Chandra, who died in late 2018 after a battle with cancer.
“I remember standing over my sister, weeping, wailing. I can remember my cousin kept pulling me off of her, saying ‘She’s gone. You gotta let her go,” Alsina recalled. “Little did (my cousin) know, I wasn’t only weeping about my sister, I was mourning myself. I was grieving myself as I knew it, because I died in that moment. Who I was, everything that I thought that I was, everything that I thought I knew about myself, it died. I couldn’t be that human being any longer. I saw my sister die and she never got to live her full life.”
Alsina said his sister was “scared of everything,” so much so that she missed out on so many experiences.
“I get my sister a car, but she’s scared to drive. She’s never driven a car because she’s scared to get on the interstate. After my brother was killed, she was scared of everything. She never lived her full life,” he said. “I just don’t want to be that … I want to live my life full. I want to die empty, whatever that means—giving myself to my three kids now, giving myself to love or a relationship, giving myself to my career, devoting myself to being a healthy person. I have to give my full self to something because that’s what makes me feel alive.”
You can watch the full interview above. Alsina also speaks on living life with a rare autoimmune disease, his relationship with his father, and how he believes there needs to be more trust among the Black community.
Culled from complex.com
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