Mona Scott-Young gets all the credit for VH1’s hit “Love and Hip Hop” franchise, but her pal and celebrity manager Yandy Smith recently revealed she’s one of the brains behind the operation.
When she stopped by Power 105.1’s “The Breakfast Club” Friday, Nov. 30, the star shared that she and Scott-Young had actually combined ideas about an ensemble show focusing on women in hip hop.
After Smith went on tour with her client Missy Elliot, she came back to learn that when “Love and Hip Hop New York” premiered in 2011, her name was not listed as one of the producers.
“I’m looking like, ‘I don’t see my name in the credits anywhere.’ I was like ‘OK. Oversight. Mistake. OK, whatever.’ … I still got paid. … Brushed it off, moved on, next season.”
Co-host Charlamagne Tha God said he thinks Scott-Young “finessed you out of a production credit,” with which Smith disagreed.
While Charlamagne pressed Smith on not getting her due, she brushed it off as being “business” and maintained the media mogul is “family.”
“I don’t blame Mona for that at all because I had a lawyer,” Smith says. “My lawyer shoulda did that. I had an attorney just like she had an attorney. But she had an agent as well and her agent knew what to fight for for her. … My music lawyer that I had asked for an executive producer credit, VH1 said no. Dumb. I was young, I was 25. Dumb.”
Regardless of how Smith feels about it, however, fans thought she got the short end of the stick.
“Mona ABSOLUTELY FINESSED YANDY AND JIM✌🏽”
“How is she your ‘friend’ yet, she didn’t school you on how the business was working 🤷🏽♀️”
“@Tommy Brown How did she win? Yandy went from the potential of having owner/production credits to being an employee whose family was exploited and played to make Mona more money. If anyone won it’s: Mona for owning all of the LHH franchises. Jim and Chrissy for not selling their family out to make Mona money.”
