Kelis is out here living her best life.
According to
The Guardian, she owns a 10-hectare farm about two hours from L.A. where she cultivates her own produce. She’s become a skilled chef under the training of
Cordon Bleu. She’s also a mother of two boys and the wife of photographer
Mike Mora. On top of all this, she still makes her
occasional musical appearances and soon, she’ll take on a world tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of her debut album
Kaleidoscope.
Despite what seems like a good setup, Kelis can’t seem to stop breaking the Internet with shocking revelations about her past life. The latest shock came from her
The Guardian interview when she revealed that she was cheated out of money early on in her career due to a music contract she signed with
Pharrell and
Chad Hugo, the production due known as
The Neptunes.
“I was told we were going to split the whole thing 33/33/33, which we didn’t do,” she said. Instead, she claims that she was “blatantly lied to and tricked”, pointing specifically to “the Neptunes and their management and their lawyers and all that stuff”. Because of the deal, Kelis said she didn’t earn a profit from the sales of her first two albums, which were produced by the Neptunes.
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She says she didn’t notice for a few years because she was still earning a profit from touring, “and just the fact that I wasn’t poor felt like enough”, she said. She continued, “Their argument is: ‘Well, you signed it.’ I’m like: ‘Yeah, I signed what I was told, and I was too young and too stupid to double-check it.’”
But remember, Kelis is living her best life, so she’s not too deep in her feelings.
“To be honest with you, I think if it were not for my faith, I feel like that would probably be the case. It’s very clear to me, especially being on a farm, that whatever you put in the ground, that is what’s going to come back to you.”
Kelis said despite her easy feelings, she still won’t work with The Neptunes again. “Ummm, at that point there’s having faith and there is also just stupidity,” she said.
Cutting toxic men out her life seems to be a trend for Kelis, considering she divorced her ex-husband
Nas in 2009. In 2018, she said that he was physically abusive. When explaining why it took her so long to talk about her experience, Kelis said, “Well, I’m a very private person, and whether it’s the stuff with the Neptunes and being assaulted from a business perspective, to then being assaulted in the home, I fought so hard to have my own voice, even with the umbrella of these men looming over what I was trying to do. I’m not broken. But I don’t feel like protecting the sanctity of the black man anymore.”
And that’s that.
Kelis’ fans are definitely here for her transparency. Check out some tweets below that prove she has full support despite distancing herself from famous men.
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