Source: Johnny Nunez/WireImage; Mike Coppola/Getty Images for MTV / Getty
Is Kimbella Vanderhee friends with Yandy Smith-Harris these days? No. However, the Love and Hip Hop New York star would like to clarify that that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s Chrissy Lampkin‘s friend either.
If you’ve watched the new season, Season 10, then you know that Chrissy and Kimbella were able to forgive and forget the crazy fight that occurred in Season 2. Back in 2011, Chrissy punched and even stepped on Kimbella in defense of her good friend Emily Bustamante. For years, the women didn’t speak, and to talk about that fight was to bring up some great embarrassment for both of them. With that being said, how were they able to move forward and even give the impression that they were friend-ly? I would say their shared disdain for Yandy brought them together. But on former Love and Hip Hop New York star Rah Ali’s podcast OnSite (she’s another person not so fond of Yandy by the way…), Kimbella let us know how she could let bygones be bygones with Chrissy.
“That fight was a horrible, horrible, horrible ordeal that I had to go through,” she said over the phone. “Even though you guys didn’t see a lot of the conversation Chrissy and I sat down and had, she actually told me that she had to go through some things as well because of that situation. It wasn’t the best light for her and it wasn’t the best light for me either. That’s why Chrissy and I, we have an understanding. We are not friends. We have an understanding and we have a respect for each other right now. That’s all that matters. I don’t give a f–k what anybody thinks or says. We know what’s real. And what’s real is us sitting down as two grown a– women, face to face, and being able to do that is big for both of us. So for me, I can only respect and that’s where I stand with it.”
And while she calls that altercation a “horrible ordeal,” Kimbella says she was able to not harbor any strong negative feelings for Chrissy over it because she wanted to keep the peace between their partners Juelz Santana and Jim Jones, members of The Diplomats.
“I let go of that sh-t the night it happened because I wasn’t going to harbor that,” she said. ” I had to let it go because not for nothin’, sh-t was going to get too crazy. I didn’t want that for one, for my man. It’s a domino effect. It’s not just me and him, but he’s part of a whole crew.”
“I didn’t want that so I was like, this is what I’m going to do. Anytime I seen Chrissy it was always like, it was never the same energy. It was like, I’m going to keep my distance from her but I’m going to show my respect,” she added. “It was just a long time coming for us to have that conversation. When we finally did, we were able to get that off of our chest and let it go.”
But letting things go with Yandy will not be so easy it seems. Kimbella shared that the beginning of the end of her friendship with her co-star was when Yandy gave her that birthday shout-out on Instagram after they hadn’t been speaking for a while. She said it was just one of many examples of Yandy being manipulative, and she decided she wasn’t going to deal with it anymore.
“It’s when I started to see all the lies and all of the manipulation. For me, I always keep it 100 so I need you to do the same for me.” she told Rah. “So when it started interfering in our relationship and our friendship, that’s when I needed to say, hold on, we not doing this over here. I know you, so you can’t front for me.”
So who is Kimbella’s ally then? She says she has one good friend in LHHNY co-star Juju Castro.
“Juju is my baby. I love her,” she said. “She is a Miami thoroughbred just like me so we relate to a lot of things. She’s a hustler. I can only respect her grind. She used to date Cam and sh-t so we became close.”
Juju is, however, still friends with Yandy as far as everyone knows, though Kimbella isn’t. Juju and Kimbella have managed to not allow that to make things awkward in their relationship.
“I don’t talk about Yandy with her. It gets a little uncomfortable,” she said. “So I don’t do that. We don’t talk about her.”
