Ashanti Opens Up About Maternity Shoot, Wedding Plans, And More

Ashanti is opening up about her relationship with Nelly, even revealing the unconventional method he proposed.

The couple first introduced their engagement again in April, and now, the “Silly” singer is giving followers extra perception into how they bought right here.

After relationship on and off for practically a decade and eventually calling it quits again in 2013, Nelly and Ashanti ended up reconnecting at Fats Joe and Ja Rule’s Verzuz battle in 2021. Although they performed coy about their rekindled romance for some time, they finally went public, and the pair have been inseparable ever since.

This week, the mother-to-be stopped by ET to speak about their relationship, giving viewers a behind the scenes have a look at her maternity shoot with photographer Derek Blanks.

“By no means in 1,000,000 years did I feel we’d be right here,” Ashanti tells ET’s Deidre Behar. “Ten years in the past — perhaps sure — however after our breakup, you recognize, I didn’t even suppose we’d ever have a dialog once more.”

When requested about how she felt when she discovered she was pregnant, the singer stated, “I used to be so shocked and glad and emotional. I all the time dreamed about it. I needed it so, so dangerous and I simply really feel just like the timing was good.”

As for her maternity shoot, she was photographed on the seaside, which Ashanti says is “authentically” her.

“To be on the seaside, out in nature and the sunshine, that’s what makes me smile and makes me glad genuinely from inside,” the singer explains. “Then, clearly, the princess girly, glam Ashanti vibe is there as properly.”

 

Again in December, the web began exploding with being pregnant rumors after Nelly rubbed Ashanti’s stomach whereas they carried out on the rapper’s annual Black and White Ball in St. Louis.

Within the viral video, Ashanti locations her palms on her abdomen, which led Nelly to rub his fiancée’s stomach and smile on the crowd. Ashanti playfully slapped his palms away because the pair laughed whereas producer Polow da Don inspired the couple to “seal the deal.”

Whereas that interplay is what actually despatched being pregnant hypothesis into overdrive, Ashanti revealed to ET that neither of them truly knew she was pregnant on the time.

“When he blurted that out on the stage, we truly didn’t know,” she defined. “I hadn’t even taken a take a look at at the moment.”

Ashanti claims she was merely attempting to regulate the pendant on her black gown when Nelly put his palms there and began “making it appear to be one thing.”

As soon as the singer missed her interval, she instantly advised her fiancé on FaceTime after taking a take a look at.

“I couldn’t wait, [I] needed to get it out. And he was similar to, ‘Oh I knew,’” Ashanti stated of the second she advised Nelly. “He was so glad and we had been each smiling and it was so humorous.”

Elsewhere in her interview, the singer additionally revealed how Nelly proposed, admitting she was carrying certainly one of his T-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts when he popped the query.

“I felt like [the proposal] was going to return quickly,” Ashanti defined. “I didn’t know when. The best way that it occurred was simply so humorous. I’m sitting within the mattress watching TV with boxers on.”

Whereas she jokes that the second was “not likely horny,” Ashanti says she burst into tears when she stated sure.

“I gave him the most important hug and kiss ever,” she recalled. “I FaceTimed everybody I do know. … I used to be overjoyed and shocked and shocked and glad, form of, like, multi functional.”

The might be Ashanti’s first and Nelly’s third youngster. The rapper is the daddy of Chanelle, 29, and Cornell Haynes III, 24, from a earlier relationship. He additionally adopted his sister, Jackie Donahue’s, children — Shawn and Sydney Thomas — after she handed away from leukemia in 2005.

Congrats to the glad couple!