S. Samuel
"Love & Hip Hop" cast member Tahiry has stepped up to address heating up the Internet last year when New York Knicks star JR Smith revealed an intimate photo of her backside to the entire world.
According to Tahiry, their relationship started off as friendly and got serious in 2012 after she had parted ways with ex-boyfriend Joe Budden.
“Six or seven years ago, he had just started in the NBA,” Tahiry said in an interview referring to Smith. “He tried to talk to me and I was involved so I said I was involved and I wanted no part in that. … Six years later, he got back to New York from China and he tweeted, ‘I wonder if Tahiry’s a Knicks fan’ and I remember saying ‘Yes,’ and ‘You, not so much,’ but it was a joke. … I’m like, ‘I’m single’ so I considered going on a date and we went to dinner. [The first night he took the infamous photo?] H*ll no! Why would he tweet my butt cheeks on the first night? What part of the game is that? [laughs] [We were dating], I would say three months [before the photo came out]. I’m lying. Maybe two months and a half.” (VLAD TV)
She also described the aftermath both of them experienced over the steamy photo going public.
“JR, I think, is very misunderstood,” Tahiry added. “He’s very sweet, knows exactly what to do to get a lady, carried my bags, made sure I got to my flights on time, the driver, asked me to dress him as he’s walking out, we flew out to a couple games. … I don’t think [the picture was] going to be so much of a big deal. … At the end of the day it was wrong, I was hurt — he sat in that room and I remember he was feeling it just like I was. I’m sitting here jamming — we played around a lot and I think he did it like, ‘Yeah, watch this.’ I remember him chuckling and I said, ‘Let me see that phone’ and then I saw it and I was like, so yeah, I cried for two days and he was there and he was very f*cked up about it too.” (VLAD TV)
Last November, JR briefly addressed the controversy Tahiry’s image sparked.
“Yeah, I have a lot of regrets. I’m not the smartest person on Twitter; I’m definitely not the dumbest either. I’m in the public eye so much that there’s so much that I have to take back off Twitter. I mean I delete stuff all the time. It’s Twitter, I don’t think people should take it so serious,” Smith said in an interview. “Yeah, the front office has came to me about that stuff, my coaches never came to me though. [One] instance was a couple years ago when we were playing the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. I was talking about Kobe [Bryant] on there and they just came to me like, “Knock it off.” Stuff like that. This past year of course there was… [the Tahiry backshot. That was] messed up.” (Complex)
The bedroom backshot photo ultimately forced Smith to cough up $25,000.
New York Knicks guard J.R. Smith has been fined $25,000 by the NBA for posting “inappropriate pictures” on his Twitter account, the league announced Saturday night. Smith posted a picture of a semi-nude woman on his account late Thursday night. He told reporters in Milwaukee on Friday night that he regretted the tweet. “I didn’t know it was going to be as big a deal as it is now,” Smith told reporters on Friday. “I definitely regret it. Anytime I do anything that takes away from our team, I’m definitely going to regret it.” Smith said on Sunday that he has no plans to appeal the fine. (ESPN New York)
Check out Tahiry’s interview:
