While fans are still reeling from the news, Tae Heckard has quietly made her way into the rapper’s arms.

A year later, Nelly exclusively told Us Weekly that he was single.No, seriously, she touches on that with only the nervous Long Island-based laughter that Ashanti can (she’s so charming). Okay, so we were in a space where we were getting back cool.Check out the tea from that sit-down, as well as her thoughts on issues with Irv Gotti, and be sure to watch the interview below. Nelly and I are kind of in the space where, I’m kinda like focusing on my career, he’s focusing on what he’s doing, you know there’s a lot of things that happened this year, you know a lot of things kinda went public more than other things have gone public before, you know what I’m saying? We’re in that space right now and there are things that were said and things that were done, that probably shouldn’t have been said or done, but they have been. [laughs] No, I mean, like I said, you know, when people are around each other for a long time, you know, there are feelings, there are things there, and people get hurt. But um, at that time, at that very moment when I was physically writing that record, I was in the studio in LA, and me and him were in this space of we were getting back together. You know you go through that space where you don’t talk. And we were actually Skyping while I was recording the record.2004 - 2009Ashanti and Nelly were linked between 20, but the nature of their relationship is still a little unclear.They've admitted to being "good friends" and were believed to be romantic for years, but in 2010 they both pointed out that they'd never admitted to the relationship -- and they claimed that it was all just gossip.