(AllHipHop News) It has been a very tough week for Joe Budden. The popular media personality faced two different highly problematic controversies over the last several days. One dealt with his ex-fiancée’s abuse accusations and the other dealt with his comments about sexually pleasing his pets.
Leaked audio of Cyn Santana, the mother of Budden’s second son, accusing him of physically dragging her at one point made its way to the internet. Then resurfaced Joe Budden Podcast footage of the retired rapper talking about wanting to masturbate his dog quickly began spreading across social media.
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While some people expected Budden would address both situations on Wednesday’s edition of his podcast, he barely spoke at all during the show as his co-hosts Jamil “Mal” Clay, Rory Farrell, and Parks Vallely carried the episode. Budden did later take to Instagram Live to reveal some of his thinking about the two-fold backlash that has consumed his social media timeline.
Budden denied abusing any women. The outspoken commentator also pushed back on the claims that he would do anything to harm animals. He then addressed widespread speculation that these two viral, negative stories were part of an organized, corporate-backed plan against him.
“It comes off two weeks of me exposing some truths about different corporations – Spotify, iHeart. I won’t say that this is a calculated smear campaign because I don’t think it’s that calculated. I just think people are stupid,” said Budden. “If I got to come on here and tell y’all that I don’t hit women and I don’t f*ck dogs every day then I will.”
On Thursday, Budden also uploaded a tweet by Isaac Hayes III to his Instagram page. Hayes wrote on Twitter, “So @JoeBudden turns down a new Spotify deal cause he’s been steadfast about owning his content and less than a week later there’s an entire smear campaign against him. So if you can’t own him destroy him. Anyone participating in this is evil and wack.”
By using Hayes’s tweet, it appeared as if Budden was co-signing the idea that Spotify was actively working to harm his reputation. The 40-year-old’s own caption for the IG post read, “Internet, some of us were here before you.. we understand how you work. #ThePlanIsStillThePlan #ProtectBlackAndBrownWomen #ProtectAnimals & #AvoidTheGhettoGoofyShit Love & Light to y’all.”
Budden recently announced he was ending his exclusive partnership between The Joe Budden Podcast and Spotify. The Love & Hip Hop: New York reality show alum also used his podcast to call out the streaming giant for what he sees as not properly compensating him for his brand’s value and supposedly trying to pillage his audience.
Spotify responded, “As Joe referenced on his show, we made him a considerable offer — one that was significantly larger and many times the value of the existing agreement and reflective of the current market and size of his audience. Unfortunately, we could not come to terms and we respect his wishes to find a new home for his show.”
