In a no holds barred response, Benzino decided to give the singer a piece of his mind and pen a open letter response on Hip Hop Weekly’s website:
“The thing with K Michelle is that you don’t want to get into a negative debate with a former cast member especially when the show did record numbers this past season after she left. I have had many successes in the industry for many years, so she has a long way to go before she can say anything about Zino. Bottom line is the facts are the facts; K Michelle came on the show in season one and made up a story about being beat up, which was a lie, which came out in her deposition in the case with her former boyfriend. When she left ‘Love & Hip Hop Atlanta’ after season 2 is when I stepped in and became a main character. I was intertwined with everyone’s storylines, so how is my storyline boring? And then from having Hip Hop Weekly on the show, to opening Sleazy & Zino’s, to my mom passing away and me getting shot, all of these were major parts of this past season. Also, I brought my fiancée Althea on the show, and she became a very important factor in the show’s storyline as well. We broke ratings records without K Michelle! If anything was boring, it was her involvement with the New York cast last season, you barely knew that she was even there. She better hope that her new show does better numbers than that VH1 special they did on her that basically flopped. She better hope it’s not a one and done like ‘Gossip Girls ‘, the Hot 97 show and ‘The New Atlanta.’ But once again, she is one of Mona Scott’s favorites–Mona manages her so of course I expected to hear K Michelle speak on their behalf. In my opinion it’s unprofessional to be the leader of a company and take sides and show favoritism, when it clearly was the whole cast, not just one person, that has made ‘Love & Hip Hop Atlanta’ so successful.”
While the magazine mogul may have had a legitimate gripe with his firing from the show, should he have used his magazine to air her out?
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