ATLANTA, GEORGIA - FEBRUARY 15: Erica Mena attends Hype Hair magazine cover release at Ventanas on February 15, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Joi Stokes/Getty Images)
Erica Mena is opening up to dish on her Love & Hop Hop: Atlanta experience and she’s also spillin’ some tea on her past relationship with DJ Envy!
Carlos King shared his hour-and-a-half-long interview with Erica on Tuesday (Oct. 24). From her childhood and modeling career to her firstborn and the early days of her relationship with Safaree Samuels, Erica put many of her personal experiences out on the table.
About an hour into the sit-down, Erica brought up some of the terms of her initial LHHATL appearances.
Notably, she said Mona Scott-Young offered her a contract right after her fight with Kimbella, though she revealed she was being paid per diem. For context, this equates to a daily allowance for bare essentials as opposed to a full-on salary.
“I wasn’t even getting paid per episode. I was getting per diem and, like, expenses paid.”
Not stopping there, Erica Mena suggested that the higher-ups took advantage of her being “hungry and devoted.”
“I was the guinea pig. Oh man, they saw me coming… [They] just knew I was hungry and devoted enough to be present without even having to talk about logistics or paperwork.”
She added, “I can talk about it now because, what, you guys fired me? Allegedly?”
Before moving on, Mena declared, “They played me like an extra and was using me like a main character.”
Later on in the sit-down, Carlos brought up Erica’s “first scandal,” which was sparked when “people said [she was] a mistress in DJ Envy’s marriage.”
In turn, Erica said that she was “totally oblivious” about the fact that DJ Envy was married before revealing that she found out through his wife — Gia Casey — calling her.
After Erica Mena recounted how panicked Envy allegedly was by the news, she mentioned him blasting her on the radio.
“[He said] something to the effect of how he cheated with someone that was beneath him. … Why run me through the mud when you knew I didn’t know?”
Regarding how DJ Envy trashed her “just to save face,” Erica Mena proclaimed, “You could [have] at least given me a decent heads-up if you were gonna go that low.”
She added, “Every word he used to kinda bring me down was his building block in desperation to try to fix his broken home.”
Continuing, Erica accused Mona Scott-Young of preventing her from sharing her truth on the show. After all, she “needed that Breakfast Club plug.”
“Mona needed that Breakfast Club plug, so she wasn’t gonna allow me to tell my story in the sense of what was going on in real-time on Love & Hip Hop. I’ve never been given that opportunity. They needed that Breakfast Club relationship so they could promote. … Politics is everything.”
As a result, Mena said she deserves to be able to share her piece at this point.
“I do feel like I am owed to clarify on my behalf this narrative that he was able to paint because he had the outlet he had.”
Check out the full interview down below.
