Leray said on Instagram Live, “Instead of reaching out to me direct, or hitting me direct and congratulating me on my nominations, and you know, being nominated for the EMAs…being nominated for the Grammys.… You don’t call, you don’t write, but you take everything to the internet and… try to downplay me and try to… play victim, try to make it seem like I’m attacking you, trying to make it seem like my intentions is to hurt you and that’s never the case here.”
She continued, “I deserve to be able to speak my truth, and that’s just a fact. I don’t have to get on here and lie about struggle. I don’t think anybody wants to do that. That’s corny.”
The rapper also mentioned that she has a mugshot and felt the need to speak out on Instagram Live to reclaim her narrative from blogs and other publications, which have chosen to write about the falling out with her father but not her recent Grammy nominations.
Later on in the clip, Leray reveals that she does not intend to speak on the matter anymore and adds that her father never wants to speak to her again.
“Respectfully, I just wish that we could kind of keep everything offline moving forward. If you have anything to say, you can call Grandpa Tito, you can call my mom. Just how you called me last week asking for what you ask for, you could’ve just hit me direct. I rather you just do that on a respectful level of just me being your daughter at the end of the day. We don’t gotta have a relationship, but I’m still your kid. It is what it is, so just respect the fact that what you’re doing is not cool.”
Leray says that her family members have been affected by Benzino’s commentary to the point where her grandfather needs to get on a breathing machine “because he gets so worked up” by seeing the media mogul “go online and just create craziness for no reason.”
“It just has to stop, and if you notice it has been a pattern for some time now… a pattern since he went on Clubhouse and did the whole ‘Blick Blick’ situation, and leaked the fact that I had the record with Nicki [Minaj], and tried to downplay my album sales on Trendsetter,” said Leray towards the end of the live-stream.
“It just seems like every single time, instead of you congratulating me and being happy for me, you want to go online and try to use me to prove yourself to these people in this industry on why you feel like you didn’t get the respect, or whatever it is, that you deserve. I don’t want to be a clout kid.”