Ashanti and Nelly’s family is growing!
Sources close to the couple reportedly told The Jasmine Brand on Wednesday (November 27) that the Grammy-winning artists are expecting their second child just months after welcoming their first child together, a baby boy named Kareem Kenkaide Haynes, on July 18.
Four weeks after giving birth to their son, Ashanti took to Instagram to celebrate the beauty and strength of her body.
“Four weeks postpartum. You have no idea what this body can do,” she wrote.
She continued: “Funny how life’s plans aren’t…always on time… lol. I’ve been waiting to be a mom for a long time now, but nothing could prepare me for EVERYTHING motherhood brings!
“This is what postpartum looks like I’m loving these super cozy @fridamom shorts! I’m so proud of my body for giving me my baby, baby, baby, baby, baby. ????”
As mentioned, Ashanti and Nelly welcomed their first child together, Kareem Haynes, on July 18, 2024.
At the time, the “Resident Evil: Extinction” star gushed about seeing her newborn’s face for the first time during an interview with Deidre Behar on Entertainment Tonight.
“I cried. It was just so emotional and spiritual at the same time. Having a vision of this moment for so long … it was such an electrifying feeling,” she said.
Ashanti, 44, and Nelly, 50, first met at a Grammy Awards Press Conference in 2003 and have worked on numerous projects together, including their 2008 track “Body On Me” featuring Akon and their 2024 hit track “This Lil’ Game We Play “alongside Juicy J and Jermaine Dupri.
The couple dated for a decade before breaking up in 2013, only to reconnect at a boxing event in Las Vegas in April 2023.
That September, Nelly confirmed he was in a relationship with the Grammy winner, admitting their rekindled romance “surprised them.”
“I think we both were pretty much doing what we do, but sometimes being separate you understand one another more,” he told Love and Hip Hop‘s Rasheeda and Kirk Frost.
“You be like, ‘Yo, let me see exactly what they see.’ You know, because we all can be defensive sometimes in our own relationships. We know we wrong but we going to stand on it. But we all a victim to that.”
According to public records obtained by TMZ, Ashanti and Nelly secretly wed in Nelly’s hometown of St. Louis on December 27, 2023.