Getty Safaree Samuels
Love & Hip Hop: New York resumes its ninth season tonight on VH1. Among the storylines that the series has put forth, one of them is the relationship between Safaree Samuels and Erica Mena. Samuels will return to Love & Hip Hop as an engaged man following his proposal to Mena on Christmas Eve.
According to TMZ, Samuels proposed to Mena at her Atlanta home on December 24. Friends and family were present when Samuels got on one knee, and footage of the couple celebrating their engagement was uploaded on Instagram by The Shade Room. Samuels reportedly dropped $175K on the engagement ring, which features 14 carats in platinum and was personally designed by the TV star and Trax NYC. Samuels’ representative KD McNair confirmed the news to TMZ, saying: “2019 is the year of new beginnings and it’s safe to say our guy Safaree stepped up and put a ring on it.”
Samuels & Erica Mena Announced That They Got Engaged on Christmas Eve
Shortly after Samuels and Mena announced their engagement, they were bombarded with criticisms that they were simply doing it to compete with another popular Love & Hip Hop couple: Joe Budden and Cyn Santana. Mena took to Twitter to defend her engagement and reason that she isn’t even a part of the Love & Hip Hop family anymore.
“It’s really a joke how folks got nerve to say I’m trying to be like X , Y and Z…… How? I’ve done everything I’ve ever wanted to do before turning 23 years old,” she tweeted on December 26. “Down to the music. Stop comparing me and just let me continue being great.” She added in a separate tweet: “Y’all want a storyline so bad and currently as it stands right now I’m not even on LHH. But carry on.”
Mena Responded to Criticisms That They Were Trying to Compete With the Recent Engagement of LHH Couple Joe Budden & Cyn Santana
This is the first serious relationship that Samuels has gotten into since his 2014 split from Nicki Minaj. During an interview with Page Six, Samuels explained that he wants nothing to do with the rapper, nor does he care about anything she does. “I focus on myself and anything that has to do with my ex and just things like that, I just try to stay out of it,” he said. “At the end of the day, when you’re with somebody for so long, they associate you with each other no matter what… I’ve been away from that situation for five years now, doing my own thing.”
During the same interview, Samuels said that he was “madly in love” with Mena. While he didn’t mention her by name, he explained that he had been friends with the woman for quite some time and that they eventually realized they needed to be together. “When I’m not with her, I get headaches because I’m just thinking about her non-stop,” he added.