Ashanti and Nelly are not back together, so says Ashanti. The r&b singer stopped by New York radio station Hot 97 this week to talk about her new album, Braveheart, but the conversation quickly turned to her ex, Nelly.

Asked if the two had reconciled, Ashanti quickly answered, “Negative,” then proceeded to explain their relationship status. “Nelly and I are in the space where I’m kind of like focusing on my career and he’s focusing on what he’s doing … I have to do me. We’re in that space right now. And there were things that were said and things that were done that probably shouldn’t have been said or done, but they have been,” the singer explained, stopping short of going into detail about what those things said and done were.

“When people are around each other a long time, there are feelings and there are things there and people get hurt. Men handle hurt differently than women handle hurt,” the NY native continued. Handling that hurt for Ashanti meant channeling the emotions in her song writing, a lot of which can be heard on her new project.

“He put a couple of scars on me. We’ve definitely scarred each other and its safe to say,” Ashanti finished.

The couple were together off-and-on for nine years before calling it quits.

Just last month, HipHollywood caught up with Ashanti in Las Vegas at the Soul Train Awards where we asked her about her latest project, and why it’s been delayed. Hear what she had to say below.