Nelly celebrated Ashanti’s 45th birthday with a short but heartfelt post on Instagram.
Ashanti turned 45 on Oct. 13. A day later, Nelly posted a message to her on Instagram, featuring a picture of the two huddled together on the beach in Anguilla in 2005 — perhaps coincidentally, the same throwback photo Ashanti had shared back in January. Somewhat ironically given how things turned out, the photo was taken at a time when they were publicly denying they were in a relationship.
“Happy Birthday to the most beautiful and amazing woman in this world,” Nelly wrote in the caption of his post. “Marrying you wasn’t just finding love — it was finding home. Love you mama.”
This heartwarming post would have never happened if the two had kept the strong anger they had towards each other before they got back together.
Earlier this year, in the trailer for their reality show Nelly and Ashanti: We Belong Together, the couple spoke about their feelings after they initially split back in 2013.
“I hated her,” said Nelly, prompting Ashanti to join in and express the same sentiment.
“I hated him,” she agreed. “I didn't think that we would get back together.”
Nelly revealed that it was because of Ashanti that the reunion happened. “She got me y’all!” he said.
In an interview with People in June, Nelly opened up about the first time he dated Ashanti, suggesting that it was like a “test drive.” In the interview, Nelly, who claimed that the breakup wasn’t “one-sided,” admitted that both he and Ashanti needed to “grow” so they could come together and be stronger than before.
"It's about the good outweighing the bad," Nelly said. "What you thought mattered a lot, once you go through other scenarios, you realize that's not really as big of a deal as you thought it would be."
"Or you get something that you thought you was missing, and it still doesn't compensate or fill a void, and you're like, 'Damn, I thought that would mean more,' but that doesn't. It's just growth," he added.
"Everybody don't get a chance to, if you could say, take a test drive," Nelly concluded. "It's like when people say, 'You should always test drive a car before you buy it.' I hate to minimize that because this is real life, so you don't want it to feel like that."