Ashanti‘s mother and manager Tina Douglas wasn’t happy about Nelly performing at Donald Trump‘s inauguration earlier this year.
During a recent episode of the couple’s reality series We Belong Together on Peacock, Ashanti broke the news to her mother that her husband was asked to perform. “This is more about the opportunity of performing at the White House as opposed to performing for a particular candidate,” the singer told her mother.
However, her mom was taken aback by the news because of her family’s background in the civil rights movement. “This is very emotional for me,” she said before explaining her father James Davis’ efforts for integration. “My dad was heavy into civil rights. He marched on Washington with Martin Luther King and he also marched to Selma. When he came back to Glen Cove, he started to integrate the systems: the school system, the fire department, the police department.”
She then told her daughter that’s it’s OK for her to voice her displeasure after Ashanti said that “ultimately” it was his decision. “As your mom and your manager, it’s my job to make sure you can voice your opinion on what you feel and what you know,” she said right before Nelly walked into the room to announce that he decided to do it. He told them that he hoped they weren’t talking about Ashanti divorcing him and promised it wasn’t going to be a big deal.
Ashanti’s mother did not agree with her son-in-law and told her daughter that it is “a big deal” when he walked away.
Nelly has tried to explain his choice to perform on a few occasions, most recently firing back at critics in the comments of a Shade Room post on Instagram. “Some of y’all have a problem with [the situation] because the prosecutor who has probably locked up more Black men that we’ve helped woman of color with the white husband and white kids did not win the election,” he wrote. “I did not campaign for anyone. I do not tell people who to vote for, I respect and love this country from top to bottom, good and bad.”
The couple got married in late 2023 and have a son together.
