Talk about full circle.
It was back in 2012 that Nicki Minaj premiered the clip for her Chris Brown Assisted “Right By My Side” track, a single found on her Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded sophomore album. In the video, rapper Nas is found playing Nicki’s leading man, most notably sharing a kiss with the fellow Queens native at a period when Nicki Minaj and Safaree Samuels were still going strong.
Now, six years after the video’s debut, four years after her public split with Safaree, and a couple months after the reported end of Nicki’s relationship with Nas, Safaree has revealed that the seemingly harmless kiss is actually a uncomfortable memory. “I was there,” he said during an appearance on the Easily Offended podcast with Mura Mookez, Bizkit, and Movie Matt. “You wanna know what’s so crazy? I didn’t know it happened until the video came out.”
According to Samuels, Nicki did warn him that there may have been an element in the video for which he wasn’t present, but it was apparently more than he could handle. “I ain’t gonna lie, n*gga, I was hurt when that shit happened,” he added. “Before that, I used to be able to [say] ‘Great. Give Drake a lap dance, great. Wayne. It was all love.’ That was whatever. But I was there the whole day, I was like, ‘Damn, did that happen when I left?’[…] I must have left for like an hour. I think that’s when that scene happened.” He went on to add: “I’m reliving it right now.”
While his breakup with Nicki Minaj publicly left Safaree with the short end of the stick his recent moves have indicated nothing short of a proper bounce back as he’s stood on his own as a central figure in VH1’s Love & Hip-Hop reality show while also finding solo success in his most recent “Hunnid” single—a catchy cut perfect for the impending summer season.
