It’s over between rapper Nelly and his longtime girlfriend Shantel Jackson.
She revealed that the couple broke up, offering a brief statement over the weekend when a fan asked if they were still an item after noticing a decrease in photos of them together.
“No we’re not ….. Just friends,” she replied.
The pair started dating in 2014. When Jackson, 37, appeared on the short-lived E! reality show The Platinum Life in 2017, she had nothing but positive things to say about their relationship.
“The best part about being with Nelly is that he always likes to have fun,” she said of the 46-year-old musician. “I don’t wanna be a baby momma, I want, you know, the horse and carriage, the wedding, the ring before I have a baby. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.”
The two certainly seemed to be a fun pairing, and it was a significant relationship for Nelly. When he appeared on Dancing With the Stars last year, she supported him and he talked about how they were “working towards” making things official.
“I would not want my life to not have Shantel in it,” he said at the time. “We’ve been seeing each other for five or six years. Any time you can connect with somebody like that, it works out for the long run. She’s sweet, beautiful, and the more we got to know each other, she’s just as beautiful inside.”
Nelly actually said way back in 2016 that they were “working on it” in regards to marriage. But the rapper is known for lengthy relationships that don’t make it to the altar. That has a lot to do with his take on marriage.
“The thing about marriage to me is … I take it very, very seriously. It’s something I’m only doing one time,” the rapper told People in 2017. “For me, it’s almost like society would prefer you to have been married and got divorced and tried it then to be married and stay married. For me, it’s more important to die married than to have been married and it didn’t work out. I want to leave this place knowing I was in love and somebody loved me and we were together, then to be like, ‘Well I’m never getting married again and I’m ruined.’”
“If it happens, when it happens, that’s it!” he added. “She’s locked in man, she’s trapped. Death do you part is serious around here!”
In this case, it didn’t happen. Nevertheless, some beautiful memories were made. See photos of some of their good times together below.
