Star Witness: Lil Wayne Shared Jail Cell With Ashanti's Stalker
If Ashanti ever returns to court to pursue additional charges against her stalker, Devar Hurd, she can call on one notable star witness: Lil Wayne.
Lil Wayne happened to meet the man found guilty of aggravated harassment and stalking while both were serving sentences at New York's Riker's Island.
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When Ashanti saw Lil Wayne after his November 2010 release from prison, he was anxious to tell her about his encounter with Hurd.
"I was in the studio with Wayne in Miami, he was like, 'Turn the music down. I got to tell you this,'" Ashanti told Yahoo Music, recalling her conversation with Wayne. "'I was in the same cell as your stalker and none of us liked him.'"
According to Lil Wayne, the inmates treated Hurd like an outcast. "When I found out he was messing with you, nobody was dealing with him. He's crazy," Lil Wayne told Ashanti.
Hurd told the "I Am Not a Human Being" rapper that Ashanti welcomed his gestures. "He just kept talking about you, saying you wanted him to be with him. You wanted him to be on your music," Wayne told Ashanti. "I said to him, 'You know that's my sister. I can ask her if you're lying.'"
In 2009, Hurd was found guilty of sending more than 100 lewd text messages to Ashanti's mother and was sentenced to two years. After his release, Hurd resumed harassing the singer and was sent back to jail.
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Ashanti didn't let Hurd distract her from completing her fifth album, "BraveHeart," released Tuesday on her independent Written Entertainment in association with Entertainment One.
The album title was partly inspired by the 1995 Mel Gibson film of the same name. "I loved the movie, I used it as a metaphor, obviously," she said. "When I came out, I was always with a major [label]. I have my own label Written Entertainment. In the movie, you had the Brits and the Scots. The Brits had machinery and horses and armor and weapons and swords, and the Scots, they kinda had homemade rags and homemade weapons and they were barefoot and they just had paint on their faces. But they came with such passion and intent and hunger that was undeniable. That's the position that I'm in."
Ashanti teams up with Rick Ross for her current single "I Got It."
