Ne-Yo has announced that he and Crystal Smith will be ending their marriage, and their divorce has inspired a new song that's helping him cope with this massive change.
On the latest episode Private Talk with Alexis Texas, Ne-Yo spoke about how he and Smith — who he married in 2016, and is the mother to his sons Shaffer Chimere Smith, Jr. and Roman Alexander-Raj Smith — will always be family but no longer husband and wife.
"Slowly but surely it's becoming public knowledge that myself and my wife have decided to go ahead and get a divorce," he told the podcast host. "It's not a sad thing… long story short, I'm never gonna talk bad about her; I'm not that person. There's nothing bad to say about her; she's a fantastic woman. She's the mother of my children. She's always gonna be that, and I will always respect her."
He went on to add that the experience has informed his soon-to-drop track "Pinkie Ring," and explained that "art imitates life" in this case.
"The song is basically about the way that I chose to feel about the situation," he said. "I could've went one of two ways: I could've let this really break me down, and put me in a place that was gonna be difficult for me to be creative, difficult for me to do what I gotta do, or I could take it in stride and keep moving like we all have to do anyway. That's the long and short of what the song is about. I'm going to be very honest with y'all: it's kind of a vent, because I was a little angry when I wrote it."
It's not a takedown of Smith by any means, though, and he's clear about that.
"The song is not a diss to her; the song is not about her," he said. "The song is about the way I chose to handle the situation, the way I chose to lift myself up and keep moving as we all must do."
Listen to Ne-Yo's chat with Alexis Texas in full here.
