Despite having racked up awards and critical acclaim for hits found aboard his first two albums, 2014’s ‘Testimony‘ and 2015’s ‘This Thing Called Life,’ a little thing called an ‘entanglement‘ still haunts R&B singer August Alsina as the defining moment of his career.
So much so, he recently told the press that he passed on reality TV opportunities multiple times before finally saying yes to the forthcoming reboot of VH1’s ‘The Surreal Life’ – the infamous ‘Real World’-inspired unscripted venture that houses a group of celebrities under one roof for two weeks to chronicle the drama that unfolds.
Taking to ‘ET,’ Alsina not only dished openly about the experience of sharing a home with basketball legend Dennis Rodman, comedienne-actress Kim Coles, award-winning R&B singer-songwriter Tamar Braxton, actor Frankie Muniz, and other celebs but also talked about how the revived series will showcase his life post-drama with Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith.
See what he had to say inside.
Ahead of the show’s October 24 premiere, August opened up about his journey to becoming a housemate.
“I honestly said no about 10 times,” he started before later discussing how the ‘entanglement’ drama made him apprehensive to join the cast. “I would say going into it, [the entanglement] probably was one of the factors for me that I felt like, ‘Hmm, do I really want to do this?’ because I didn’t want to go into a situation where people would grab for low-hanging fruit.”
Ultimately concluding the experience would “allow people to see and experience” his “authentic energy as opposed to the narrative that had been clouding” his image, Alsina told ET he was poised and ready to move on from the scandal since he has “absolutely zero” contact with the Smiths.
“I can only be responsible for my own actions and hold myself accountable for what I do, what I say and what I know to be true for myself,” he said about his future.
All-in-all, the 30-year-old – who has also battled highly publicized health issues – is excited about his next chapters.
“I’m in the space in life where the possibilities are endless because it’s like when you move beyond fear and you see what’s on the other side of it after you’re scared sh-tless, there’s so many gifts on the other side of it,” he relayed. “People kick you out, like, it’s so many gifts on the other side of that and once you go through it and you realize, ‘Oh, Ok, I’m still alive. I survived it. Now what?”
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His interview with ET comes just weeks after Pinkett-Smith announced she is readying a “no-holds barred” memoir detailing her romantic rendezvous with him, Tupac Shakur, and others. Click here to read more about that.