Beginning when R&B singer Kelis filed for divorce from rapper Nas in 2009, the mononymous stars’ messy split has played out over hip-hop blogs and tabloid covers.
Kelis filed the papers when she was seven months pregnant with Nas’s son, claiming irreconcilable differences. The couple officially terminated their marriage in 2010 “after an eternity of legal war,” TMZ wrote at the time. The 2010 blog post continued, “There are still a few more nasty battles to fight…like child custody and spousal support. Currently, Nas is ordered to fork over roughly 10k a month for child and spousal support—which he claims he can’t afford. So, the next round should be all sorts of fun.”
In the nine years since, the couples’ legal disputes have continued to make headlines. In 2017 they flared up once again, thanks to court docs obtained by TMZ in which Nas claimed he’s tried “for months” to get Kelis to allow him to spend more time with their 8-year-old son, Knight. “Nas claims Kelis has dictated when, where and for how long he’s able to spend time with his son,” TMZ continued. “And he’s had enough.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Two months later, Kelis filed legal documents seeking to raise Nas’s child support from $8,000 a month, claiming that Knight had new needs, including school costs. Kelis additionally argued that Nas was in a far better place financially than he was when the original child support was agreed upon. In 2018, XXL reported that the rapper’s net worth “continues to skyrocket,” crediting the windfall to “a plethora of good investments ranging from Bitcoin to making $40 million by aligning with a doorbell company.”
Nas and Kelis appeared to put one chapter of their custody battle behind them in March 2018, reportedly agreeing to share joint legal and physical custody of Knight. Sadly, just one month later, Nas claimed that Kelis violated their agreement. According to XXL, “Nas says it was his weekend to have their 8-year-old child Knight, but Kelis claimed the child wanted to stay with her during Passover…Nas claims he once arrived at Kelis’ house to pick up Knight and the singer screamed at him, saying he couldn’t take the child. The rapper also says Kelis has refused to allow him to pick up Knight from school.”
Now, in a new interview with Hollywood Unlocked, Kelis is speaking out about Nas’s allegedly abusive behavior and years of infidelity like never before. She began the sit-down by emphasizing that she had never done a tell-all interview about her marriage and divorce— “I have never, ever said anything negative about this man…I have edited myself for nine years, and I woke up this morning and was like, not today.”
Kelis went on to describe the intense highs and lows of their marriage, which was “tumultuous and toxic.” While rumors have long held that Kelis left Nas because he cheated, she clarified that, “That broke the camel’s back, but that wasn’t it. I didn’t file for divorce because he’d cheated, he’d cheated for two years and I knew that. It was because on top of all the other stuff, then you’re going to cheat?”
When pressed to describe the lowest point of the relationship, Kelis said that “there was a lot of mental and physical abuse.” She was careful to clarify that she fought back, saying, “I have never painted myself as a saint. Did he hit me? Mhmm. Did I hit him back? Mhmm.” She cited alcohol as a major factor, saying that Nas “drank way too much” and would often black out. “I’m not afraid to throw a punch, but I wouldn’t have started it. I’ll participate in ending it, but I wouldn’t have started it.”
She recalled the day when the pictures of Rihanna’s bruised face went viral— “And the only way I can describe it was like Double Dutch, like, ‘Do I jump in? Do I say it?’ Cause I had bruises all over my body at that time.”
“Seeing her, the way she looked and then looking at myself, I was embarrassed. I was appalled. I don’t know that situation, but for me it was kind of like, you’re going to just let this go? You’re not going to say anything?” she continued. “He knew it, I knew it. He looked at me like, ‘Are you going to do it?’” She claimed that she chose not to speak up for multiple reasons, including a desire to maintain privacy and the fact that she didn’t want her career to be defined by the abuse.
“So much of me was out of character in that marriage, like taking that is not my character,” she concluded. “I didn’t say anything because I wanted things to work, and because I was delusional.”
Kelis went on to claim that while she’s never gone to the press, Nas is “obsessed” with his image. “That’s why people think he’s phenomenal and I’m some raging crazy bitch,” she laughed, “because he gives a damn and I don’t care.”
Asked to clarify on the recent child support and custody battles, Kelis didn’t hold back, calling Nas’s claims crazy and ridiculous. For context, she described returning to L.A. from New York with her three-month-old baby to find that their house was in foreclosure, because “I would always put the money down and then [Nas] would pay the mortgage.”
“It didn’t even occur to me that he would stop or had stopped paying the mortgage,” she continued. When she called Nas to ask him about the foreclosure notice, he allegedly told her to “go fuck yourself.” From then on, Kelis saw herself as a single mom. “You have a child, and I do everything, everything,” she addressed her ex. “You found out where he went to school two months ago. Not because it was a secret, because you didn’t ask. And because you don’t take him to school, and you do not pick him up, and you don’t go to dentist’s appointments, or doctors…”
Kelis claimed that Nas only consistently started financially supporting Knight “about two years ago.” She said that up until 2012, she didn’t get “a single cent.” She continued, “He doesn’t participate. He shows up when it’s fun, he shows up when there’s a good photo-op, he shows up when he feels like he needs a snuggle…I don’t think it should be 50/50 just because you had sperm involved. If you want to be involved, prove it.”
“The whole story that like, ‘You keep me from my child!’ Really? When did that happen? Was it when I was begging you to help, or when I was waiting for you to show up to the point that I can’t even tell my child that you’re coming until you’re actually at the curb, because of how many times you have not shown up? It’s a lie to say you can’t see him.” But, she added, “You can’t not show up for months, and then show up and want to change the whole schedule, the whole plan.”
While she claims that $8,000 a month was hardly ever enough, Kelis said that she never complained about money in the past. Nas’s decision to take her to court seemed to act as a wake-up call: “Now that you want to drag my name through the mud, disrupt the peace in my household, put my kid through stress…I’m like, yes, now you should pay what you should pay. How about that?”
After going in on the stress of her former relationship and the ongoing legal battle, the notion that Kelis would want Nas back seemed laughable. So it was no surprise that Kelis literally laughed at the suggestion that she might have been jealous of Nas’s recent ex, Nicki Minaj. “Take him!” she joked, “Take him back!”
“Had it, got rid of it, do not want it back,” she announced on the subject of Nas’s current and future romantic relationships. “You should have him, you’ll be running for the hills soon too, like Nicki!”
