Yandy Smith-Harris and her foster daughter Infinity Gilyard discussed in a recent episode of the “Know For Sure” podcast featuring B. Simone and Megan Brooks the past issues the pair faced during the last season of “Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta.”
Smith-Harris had an estranged relationship with the then-teenager after she refused to stop dating an older individual that reportedly tried to sell false stories to the media in hopes of getting Smith-Harris’ other children removed from the home. This situation would ultimately lead to Smith-Harris’ husband, Mendeecees Harris, suggesting Gilyard get her own apartment.
During the interview on May 26, when Brooks asked Smith-Harris and Gilyard at the 43:08 mark of the talk what caused the tension between both women, aside from the reported incident, the mother of three claimed it was Gilyard just “being a teenager.”
She said, “Her being a teenager I’ll just say that. Being a teenager, being rebellious. Feeling like she knew everything. Feeling like I make my own decisions. Me being a beginner amateur mom never having a teenager and not completely understanding what she had been through and what she was looking for. I was just like ‘This is my house; you’re going to follow my rules.’ “
Smith-Harris added that she’d expressed to Gilyard, ” ‘What you’re going to give me is respect and you are going to follow my rules.’ I think that was difficult.” Following Smith-Harris’s response, Gilyard agreed it was a difficult adjustment at first coming into a “structured” environment.
The 20-year-old replied, “It was definitely difficult, kind of like coming into an environment where it was structured.”
Gilyard continued by mentioning when she was 14, before being taken in by Smith-Harris, she didn’t know what rules or discipline meant because she would come home at all hours of the night after working a babysitting job. When discussing the shift from her previous life to living with Smith-Harris, Gilyard explained the pair would clash regarding the reality star’s rules.
At mark 44:31, Gilyard said, “It was just structured now for once and for me it was like ‘whoa.’ Like this is new and it’s not that I wasn’t coming in mom’s home not coming in on time it was just I would give her push back like ‘Mom can I stay out a little bit longer or mom can I just do this?’ It was just constantly we would have these conversations and it’s like no my rules are my rules. You will abide by them or get the hell out.”
Gilyard wrapped up the conversation by saying she wasn’t used to having an important person in her life “putting their foot down for the right reasons.” She continued, “I was being called a b–h my whole life. So to have someone actually for once put their foot down but put their foot down out of love for the right reason, it was like ‘wow.’ I wasn’t receptive to it. I didn’t know how to be receptive to it. I was conditioned for something different. I was used to operating on my own.”
Later in the discussion, Smith-Harris shared that despite many people seeing the breakdown of their relationship on air last year on “LHH: ATL,” the 40-year-old claimed no one truly knows what went on behind closed doors.
Smith-Harris said while sharing the emotional nights she and Gilyard had, “It wasn’t something that was easy, like there’s so many people out that are encouraged I think by what they see as far as our relationship. But there were so many nights where we curled up on the floor crying.”
Smith-Harris added, as Gilyard began crying, “There were nights were I’m like ‘Nope you’re going to get in the bed and we just going to cry. We going to get underneath and just cry’ and it was like those screaming out crying. But I think these are things that people have no idea when you watch a TV show or you watch us on Instagram doing TikTok dances you have no idea of what really was going on.”
Smith-Harris concluded by saying that Gilyard had to unlearn everything she was taught at an early age to feel the love she and her family were offering her.
Smith-Harris first took in Gilyard in 2018, and became her foster mother the following year.
