August Alsina says he doesn't get why Jada Pinkett Smith using 'entanglement' is such a big deal after TI dig
On Friday, July 17, rap artist Lil Wayne and singer-songwriter August Alsina had a conversation on the season 1 finale of ‘Young Money Radio’. The two artists talked about Alsina's widely publicized past relationship with Jada Pinkett-Smith.
In an interview at the end of June, Alsina shared on ‘The Breakfast Club’ that he had been involved in a relationship with Jada a few years ago. Following that, earlier this month on ‘Red Table Talk’ Jada and her husband Will Smith discussed this for the world to see.
In the episode, Jada admitted to having a relationship with musician August Alsina when she and Will were separated after public speculation on this raged online in the last couple of weeks. Jada revealed that she started a close friendship with Alsina about four and a half years ago, and said her family was trying to help him because he was “really sick”. "It all started with him just needing some help. Me wanting to help his health, his mental state," Jada said about Alsina, who has been open about battling an auto-immune disease. Soon, however, she said that it became a “different kind of entanglement” at a time when she and Will thought their marriage was over.
“An entanglement? A relationship,” Will said, to which Jada replied, “Yes, it was a relationship. Absolutely. I was in a lot of pain. I was very broken… Now, in the process of that relationship, I definitely realize that you can’t find happiness outside of yourself... I would definitely say we did everything that we could to get away from each other, only to realize that that wasn’t possible.”
Alsina, who appeared on ‘Young Money Radio’ to promote his third album, ‘The Product III: State of Emergency’, admitted to Lil Wayne that he will always have feelings for Jada. “I will always have love for her as a person,” Alsina told Wayne. “The experience really did help to transform me and really bring out the king in me.”
Alsina had claimed in the June interview that the Smiths had an open marriage and that Will had allegedly given him permission to date Jada. Later, on ‘Red Table talk’, Jada had said, “The only person that can give permission in that particular circumstance is myself. I could actually see how he would perceive it as permission because we were separated amicably. And I think he also wanted to make it clear that he is not a homewrecker because he’s not.”
Speaking to Lil Wayne, Alsina said, “As two men, we had a conversation and that’s what it was. Everything that I've spoken on in my initial interview is and was, and still is, my exact truth.”
Alsina also spoke about the allegations that he was using the “entanglement” with Jada to help publicize his new album. “Absolutely not,” the singer said. “What's perplexing to me is that I never think it's anybody's business to know my business. But when my personal business starts to affect my lifestyle and my livelihood, like I lost partnerships and deals behind that situation -- because it looked to the world as if August Alsina was some reckless New Orleans [expletive] that I'm just pushing up on somebody's wife.”
But he added that he had no bad feelings toward the Smith family. “Here's the deal, man, nobody's wrong here,” he said. “Nobody's a bad person. She didn't prey on me, or whatever that people are saying.”
Earlier, rapper TI took a dig at Jada while wishing his wife on her birthday. He used the words, "May nothing hurtful harmful or dangerous Interrupt this Lifetime Entanglement."
In an interview with Vulture published on Friday, Alsina addressed this word as well. “I don't know why that word is such an issue," he said. "I would agree [with Jada]. If you look up the definition of ‘entanglement’, it is a complex and difficult relationship. It was exactly that. I think it's just the language that probably stuck out to people. But I definitely have to agree with it being an entanglement. It definitely was something complicated, a complicated dynamic.”
Even there, he stuck to his word that he had Will Smith’s blessing for the relationship. “I can't speak for anyone else,” he said. “What I said in my interview, how I said it, when I said it, is exactly what I said and exactly what I meant. That's all I can really say about that. All I have is my truth, and all I have is my truth to stand on it. I don’t have any reason to lie about anything.”