In an interview with Shannon Sharpe, DJ Khaled shared his side of the story from when he had an awkward meeting with Tony Yayo at the height of 50 Cent's beef with Fat Joe.
"I don't know about all that, I just know about the shaking hand part," he said around an hour and 13 minutes into the interview, as seen above. "I don't know about all that other stuff. But I am the definition of loyalty. Anybody that know Khaled, I'm a loyal friend and if you're loyal to me I'm loyal to you. But also loyal meaning... it's not just the word loyalty, it's family. I be uncomfortable knowing that you and this person are not getting along and I know it's serious. I'm uncomfortable acting like everything is cool when I'd rather just be at peace and walk away from it."
As Yayo recalled on Drink Champs earlier this year, Yayo was set to appear on DJ Khaled's radio show but he didn't think it was such a wise idea because his G-Unit bandmate 50 Cent was beefing with Fat Joe at the time. When he went to shake his hand, Khaled pulled away his hand and told him, "'DJ Khaled! Get the fuck outta here!'"
While Khaled did not confirm with Sharpe whether he shouted his name before his interaction with Yayo, he did confirm the incident went down. He also explained why he decided to do what he did, without wanting to cause further problems between the warring rappers.
"At that time, you know, I work at a radio station," he continued. "Everybody's welcome at a radio station, so you can never involve them type of situations and I understood that, and I've always been somebody that showed love. When they told me he was coming up I was like, 'Wow... Him and my man don't get along.'"
He said that he knew going into the situation that it was going to be "hard" for him, because if he completely "embraced" Yayo he "wouldn't be able to sleep at night." He also added that if he did embrace Yayo, he would've immediately had to call up Fat Joe to explain what happened, because that's how much he considers Joe his "brother." He considered taking the day off, but didn't want it to appear like he was ducking or avoiding conflict.
"By the way, it's all love now, everybody's all love now," he shared. "I have no problem with nobody, I want to make that clear. I love everyone. We know that was when we were younger. He did come shake my hand, I told him I can't do that. I just told him I couldn't do it." When asked how Yayo reacted, Khaled laughed and shook his head. "If I ever put a documentary out it's gonna be interesting," he said. "The thing that is so beautiful is that we're able to talk about it now and have a laugh and a smile about it. When he told the story and I heard him, he said he respected me and he understood, right. That was love, I'm saying, that was love him saying that."
Watch the full interview with Khaled above.
