The rapper also reveals that he wouldn't have made the song if he'd known 'something this tragic would've happened' to her.
Big Sean says his 2014 hit song, "I Don't F**k with You" (IDFWU)," was never meant to be a "diss" track for his ex, and late actress, Naya Rivera. In a new interview with Vulture published on Tuesday, the 32-year-old rapper gets asked if he regrets making "IDFWU," which was released shortly after the two called it quits.
"That's a tough question to answer because I'm still processing a lot of that," Big Sean expresses. "I don't feel comfortable talking about it because I want to respect her. She's made such an impact on people, and she's done so many great things in her life and her career that it was hurtful to even have that [song] be associated with her."
He then goes on to admit, "It wasn’t a diss to her. I truly made the song and played it for her. She knew about it, and she liked it."
"We had a breakup that was very public, and we were young and we forgave each other and moved on from that," he notes. "If I would have known something this tragic would have happened, I would have never made the song."
Rivera was found dead in Lake Piru in Ventura County, California, on July 13, following a boating trip with her 4-year-old son, Josey, the week prior.
The rapper and actress started dating in April 2013, and got engaged in October of that year. Six months after he proposed, he and Rivera ended their engagement in 2014. "Sean wishes Naya nothing but the best and it is still his hope that they can continue to work through their issues privately," Big Sean's rep said in a statement at the time.
Despite their split, Rivera told ET in 2016 that she didn't have any regrets about their relationship, and that it didn't work out because Big Sean "wasn't Ryan [Dorsey]," with whom she tied the knot in 2014, after having dated years prior. Rivera and Dorsey welcomed their son in 2015. The pair finalized their divorce in June 2018.
Meanwhile in the Vulture interview, Big Sean also opens up about the importance of sharing one's feelings. Touching on a July 21 tweet, which read, "DON'T PRETEND TO BE OKAY WHEN YOU'RE NOT!" he says his grandfather was "dry" but his father was "a little bit more expressive."
"He has gone through a lot he never talked about. So it was a new thing for me to approach my life like, 'Let me sit down and talk with somebody,'" he shares. "It inspired my dad to do the same thing -- to talk about his life and sit down with people, to pursue therapy. It’s something that I’m very proud of."
"But when I tweeted 'don’t pretend to be okay when you’re not,' I was tweeting at myself," he says. "What I was dealing with is that my assistant that I’d worked with for a couple of years had passed away, actually committed suicide. It affected me. I went through another situation before that. It really helped when I came to the realization, like, 'Hey man, don’t pretend to be okay if you’re not okay.'"
Following Rivera's death, Big Sean also took to social media to pay tribute to his former love, where he expressed how much he appreciated and cherished "everything that ever happened between us, for making me wiser and a better person."
"Rest In Peace Naya, God Bless your Soul! Thank you for blessing us all with your talent and presence. you are a hero!" Big Sean began. "Not just because of how you saved your son, also because of the barriers you knocked down for so many people to make them feel confident in themselves and to stand tall and be proud when they couldn’t achieve that on their own."
Hear more of what he shared in the video below.
RELATED CONTENT:
