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Since Will and Jada confirmed August Alsina’s story about his relationship with Jada, more than a few people may have been wondering what he thought about the way that all went down. Well, August answered those questions and then some during a recent interview with Vulture. Check out the highlights from the piece, including his thoughts on the word “entanglement” and even his public feud with Keke Palmer below.
On why he came out with this relationship now.
“I never think it’s important to know who I date. It is never anybody’s business. What people do in their personal time is what people do in their personal time. So that’s probably why in the past I’ve never spoken on it. But this became very complex for me because we’re all public figures, and there was a lot of chatter around my name and her name. I’m pretty expressive. And when I love something or love someone, I express that. Over time, I was expressing my love externally and outwardly, and when you are in a situation, and you super in love, it’s like f*ck it. I don’t care what anybody thinks…But once I got to step out of it and step outside of it, there would be people bringing how I looked to my attention. People looked at me as this problematic guy who was super reckless, like I’m pushing up on someone’s wife. I didn’t really like that and I didn’t like the sound of that, especially when it wasn’t the truth. I think because people didn’t have the truth, it allowed them to view me and my character a certain type of way. And that started to really eat at my soul, but deeper than that, it started to f*ck with my partnerships and business relationships and money because of people seeing me as this reckless guy who’s like publicly announcing his love and pushing up on somebody’s wife quote, unquote.
That’s really the only reason I felt the need to speak my truth. A lot of those people in partnerships came back around and apologized like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, my bad. I really didn’t know.’
My livelihood is important because I have three kids to take care of now, and I didn’t like how that started to tamper with my life and my finances. I felt it necessary to get it out off of my spirit and clear the air…It felt like an elephant sitting on my spirit after a while…”
When the interviewer asked August if he wished he’d cleared the air sooner, he said no. With everything he had going on in terms of his health battles, he might not have had the words or the temperament to clear the air in the right way—with love.
“I never want to come from a place of hurt, anger, or malice. Always from a place of love. I think that everything worked out in the way that it should.”
Interestingly, he shared that he had not seen the latest episode of Red Table Talk.
And then he spoke about the word entanglement.
“I don’t know why that word is such an issue. I would agree [with Jada.] If you look up the definition of “entanglement,” it is a complex and difficult relationship. It was exactly that. I think it’s just the language that probably stuck out to people. But I definitely have to agree with it being an entanglement. It definitely was something complicated, a complicated dynamic.”
Then he answered a question that I personally wanted to know the answer to—why he left the entanglement in the first place.
“I love all of them. They’ve been my family, and there’s a lot of history there. They’re beautiful people. They’re beautiful spirits. They really are. After my sister died [of cancer in 2018], I decided to do something different and kind of untangle myself from what I had been tangled up in for so long, because it kept me out of alignment with my true self, so to speak. I’m an artist but because the full truth was never there and the clarity was never there, it kept me from living in my expression. And that made me feel weighted down. That, itself, is another form of oppression and repression and suppression. It started to kind of eat at my life force. That’s really what it’s about more than anything.
But the relationship did help August in some ways and he says he doesn’t regret getting as deeply involved as he did.
“I think that [relationship] helped me to operate and access my higher self…I know that on this planet, there is not much harmony, and there is not much love, so when you’re actually given love, real love that you’ve never experienced, it is a gift. No matter how complex or hard it may be to face or whatever, that’s the gift…It’s been a blessing to me. Even the really hard parts and the tough parts of it…There’s nothing to regret because it’s not something I went searching for. It’s not something I went after. I don’t go after people’s girls. Nobody preyed on me or was a predator towards me. This is none of that. It just is. It just was. So I don’t feel any reason to have regrets. I could never say that I regret being given the gift of experience and love. It’s a lesson.”
Then lastly, the interviewer asked him about his Twitter interaction with Keke Palmer that seemed to take an unnecessarily mean turn. August accused her of firing shots when she told a Twitter user that the two never dated. Later, he called her mentally unstable. The interviewer told him it looked like he was doing too much (not in those words.) And while I was hoping August would take this opportunity to make amends, he seemed to double down.
“I would dive into that with you, but I literally can’t give her any of my energy at this point in my life. I actually gave it too much of my energy. But what I will say is that covert narcissism exists. There’s so much that I witnessed that people don’t know that I see that comes across my table. People will throw stones and hide their hands and then get back and play victim. I’m aware of that. That’s just people. But with that in particular, I don’t even have the energy to devote to that conversation at all. When I said “next,” I meant that in real life.”
You can read August Alsina’s full interview with Vulture, here.
