Source: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage; Brian Ach/Getty Images for Vh1 / Getty
For those of you who used to watch Love and Hip Hop New York, you might remember rapper Saigon from Season 4. He appeared with Erica Jean, the mother of his young son, and the two had an incredibly tumultuous co-parenting relationship. Unfortunately, seven years since their issues were exposed, things only got worse.
The 42-year-old appeared on a recent episode of the Revolt podcast Drink Champs with N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN where he talked about his time on the show. He said in just one season, Love and Hip Hop contributed to the complete destruction of he and Erica’s ability to get along and for him to be a part of his son’s life.
“Me and her ain’t been friends since that show,” he said. “I don’t f–k with her. Once I can’t trust you, I can’t f–k with you.”
He only did half of a season technically, but according to Saigon, Mona Scott-Young persuaded him to finish a whole one because he needed the money at that time. His mother had just passed away and in his grief, he recklessly slept with multiple women without protection. He ended up expecting two kids at the same time who were born weeks apart, one of them being his son with Erica. His financial situation was a mess.
After a young woman he was talking to tried to use him to get on the show, she got cut because Mona and producers could tell their relationship wasn’t a serious one and lacked chemistry. Saigon was asked to stay but to find someone else to appear with him. He claims he gave Erica Jean the opportunity, and once she got on, things went terribly — as we all witnessed. He claimed she did a 180 on him after “her friends got in her head” and producers told her that she and the rapper were “boring,” needing to spice things up. That’s when the arguments got more intense.
“Y’all didn’t even see half the sh-t she was saying that didn’t make the screen,” he said. “B—h called me gay one time on tape.”
They couldn’t co-parent, they disrespected each other constantly, and not even Iyanla Vanzant could help them after they appeared on Fix My Life.
He said he attempted to warn her that giving into drama was just going to hurt their son in the long run.
“‘Erica, we have a son together. When this show’s not hot no more, we’re still gonna have to raise this kid,'” he recalled saying. “‘You letting temporary sh-t do things that’s going to have permanent damage.'”
It certainly did. Saigon said to this day, they’re still not in a good place. It’s to the point where his relationship with his son is nonexistent.
“After Love and Hip Hop, I never f–ked with her again…So this is seven years I ain’t f–ked with this girl,” he said.
When asked if the show was the reason their co-parenting relationship fell apart, he replied, “it killed it.”
“My son is about to be nine years old next week and I hardly know him. I hardly know him and I want to know him,” he said. I explained to this young lady, I said, ‘look, you can’t raise this little Black man like I can, man. I don’t give a f–k what ni–as come in and out of your life, nobody’s gonna love this ni–a unconditionally. Stop f–king keeping him away from me. Stop doing that, because do you hate me more than you love him? You hurting him more than you hurting me. You thinking, ‘Oh I’m a keep him over here.’ But you hurting him because he’s growing up without his father.’ This sh-t makes me want to cry, I’m not even going to lie.”
There could be a glimmer of hope though, as he says she reached out to him days before the interview to share that her father had passed away. Their son was very close to Erica’s father, so with that male figure gone from his life, there may be an opportunity for Saigon to finally step in and be a consistent presence.
“I want a relationship with my son,” he said. “I don’t have the relationship with my son.”
