Has anyone ever had a more eventful Pride/BET Awards weekend than Joe Budden? The Jersey rapper turned Love & Hip Hop star couldn’t even wait until the awards show started to make a scene, picking a fight with Migos during the pre-show. After Budden stormed off mid-Migos interview, the “Bad and Boujee” rappers dropped their mics, rolled up their sleeves, and sicced their entourage on Budden’s crew. While no rappers or glorified podcast personalities were injured during the filming of this pre-show, it was later immortalized on Twitter as one of the most dramatic, must-see moments of the night. And for his encore performance, Budden chose a Twitter feud that defies 140-character description.
In order to get to the bottom of Monday’s Joe Budden-Cyn Santana-YesJulz hate triangle, I’d like to direct you towards the ever-growing binders full of problematic white women. Somewhere between Katy Perry and Igloo Australia you’ll find YesJulz, a self-described “social entrepreneur” with 494K Instagram followers, an aggressive social calendar, an undeniably rocking bod and a penchant for appropriating black culture that just won’t quit. YesJulz, aka Julieanna Goddard, has a reputation for cultural appropriation; as Aaron Williams wrote for Uproxx, “She hosts parties that prominently feature hip-hop personalities and musicians, but remains suspiciously silent with regards to the social adversities faced by the primary purveyors and connoisseurs of hip-hop culture.” All in all, not the type of behavior you’d expect from someone who bills her creative marketing agency as “bridging the gap between cool and conscious.”
Unfortunately, pairing privileged apoliticism and a knockoff Amber Rose haircut isn’t Goddard’s worst cultural crime. The influencer currently known as YesJulz pissed off a whole lot of people in early May, when she tweeted out a picture of a T-shirt with the n-word on it, captioned, “So…am I allowed to wear this shirt at the festival tomorrow or nah.” While Julz ultimately deleted the tweet, she also defended it by insisting that she was “calling out some1 who suggested that I wear this t-shirt he made,” adding, “I clearly wouldn’t wear it. That was what the tweet meant.”
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Julz’s unconvincing mea non culpa led to her getting fired from two upcoming Toronto events. In a formal statement, uTOpia Music Fest wrote, “uTOpia Music Fest prides itself in bringing together the urban community in positive ways while celebrating the raw talent of emerging artists in Toronto without any form of hate or discrimination…in light of the recent inappropriate comment made by YesJulz on social media, we have decided that YesJulz will no longer be co-hosting our event…as her actions do not comply with our core values.”
But who is YesJulz anyway? For the lowdown on this Second Skin overalls-wearing, sponsored content-posting, acrylic nails and body chains in Medina-boasting social media maestro, we went to the source of all things basic bitch: Elite Daily. Naturally, the website that brought us “13 Ways to Make Sure You’re the Most Hated Girl at Brunch” and “The Difference Between Ghosting And Breadcrumbing”—one is lower carb?—has an in-depth interview with “the 25-year-old Snapchat ‘It’ girl and self-proclaimed Director of Vibes in Miami.” According to Elite Daily, when Julz isn’t “dream chasing and traipsing the globe with an all-girl crew,” working by day and “raging in America’s spiciest hotspots” by night, she’s doing/posting Instagram’s of “the kind of charity work Angelina Jolie would be proud of.” In other words, don’t be surprised if Julz shows up at your local club, next music festival, or on your Instagram explore page.
Sadly, Julz is also known for being the target of an absurdist extortion plot, in which a fellow Snapchat influencer and her accomplice allegedly got on to Julz’s cell phone and demanded $18,000 to stop them from publishing sexually explicit photos and videos. Although the duo was eventually caught by Miami Beach Police and the cell was recovered, Julz’s unauthorized sex tape was eventually leaked on the internet.
As an omnipresent almost-celebrity, Julz has fostered relationships with a bunch of other peripheral B-through-D-listers—which is where the consistently petty Budden comes in. In the past, Julz has appeared on Budden’s podcast, and the two have flitted in and out of each other’s social media. But when a Twitter user asked Julz about Budden on Monday morning—presumably pegged to his BET pre-show performance—Julz responded “Who?” What was probably just a joke, albeit a somewhat shady one, quickly devolved when Budden’s girlfriend Cyn Santana decided to dedicate her entire morning to drama.
Santana is a video girl, clothing designer and singer who is best known for her own Love & Hip-Hop credits—so she knows a thing or two about receipts. Responding to Julz’s arguably disrespectful tweet, Santana wrote, “The dude u were beggin to save u via texts when all of twitter was destroyin u. Remember?” The conversation then took a sharp turn, with Julz clapping back, “I also have some texts! They were from Joe on a day he tried 2return a Kith sweat suit weeks after wearing &posting it on IG…YoUr MaN is A BuM…He must be upset that even after I called my friend to help him get his little $400 back, he still couldn’t return the outfit…I guess Pump It Up royalties only go so far [white lady shrugging emoji].” Santana proceeded to do all of us a favor by synthesizing the beef: “This bitch talking bout sweats lol like huh. Nvm. Dishing out heat u can’t take…Bum ass bitches ain’t bout to come for MY man when he was the first person they hit crying when the entire world was chewing ya ass up.”
Santana also tagged in Budden, who tweeted, “Julz I know you from Tampa before the fat transfer, u might want to relax soon.” Julz, to her credit, had a pretty good comeback to that body-shaming nonsense: “Joey, I am sorry I never let you get that dinner.” She elaborated, “I never had an issue w/ Joe till he came outside his crusty old mouth talking about me&my body as if he wasn’t after it a yr ago.”
Budden ultimately went to shut down the back and forth by tweeting out a screenshot of his old texts with Julz, captioned, “U doing it for Twitter but my girl really gon smack the shit out u…enjoy your day.” The texts do, as advertised, show Julz asking Budden for advice, writing, “I want to apologize and try and make people understand that I am sorry and really really was stupid to think that people would understand the context of my joke or sarcasm through a 140 character tweet…But I’m so afraid to say anything at all wrong at this point that I don’t know how to go about it.” In terms of social media doxxing’s, this one is pretty tame. Julz clearly wasn’t sweating it, replying, “Joey baby your entire career was revived off the fact that you do it for twitter. Glad complex gave u a job! Now get to work.”
