Shay Johnson is no stranger to finding love on TV. We first met her on “Flava of Love Part 2” as the rambunctious 20-year-old Flav named “Buckey.” Curvacious with a smart mouth and confidence to spare, she won over audiences so much that she’s become a regular on reality TV. Looking for love on TV may seem far-fetched but when you talk to Johnson, it’s obvious that love is something she’d do anything to have.
“I just know when I marry my husband it’s going to be the best day of my life,” she says wistfully.
Being a hopeless romantic doesn’t bode well on Mona Scott Young’s “Love & Hip Hop” franchise and Johnson’s been on the receiving end of heartbreak a few times. She was introduced to “Love & Hip Hop” fans as rapper Lil Scrappy’s friend turned girlfriend, turned friend again after he ended up proposing to his daughter’s mother Ericka Dixon while Johnson watched along with viewers. This was after almost a decade of being best friends with Scrappy, five of purely platonic friendship and another five of complicated off and on dances with Scrappy, which resulted usually with Johnson ending up holding her bleeding heart in her hand.
“Scrappy goes back and forth between women and he’ll tell you bad things about the other woman and then when it’s her turn, he’ll tell you bad things about whoever he’s with currently. It’s what he’s done the entire time I’ve known him and it’s exactly what happened this time. I don’t blame him completely. I take responsibility for taking him back over and over again when I should know better by now. He recently made a post saying he was in a bad place when he was in Miami and that’s just his way of trying to make his ‘new wife’ feel better. But the truth is, we were happy in Miami. He just found out about Pleasure and ran back to Atlanta and got married,” Johnson says. “The fact that I can take responsibility for my part in this proves to me that I’m really over it this time.”
If you’re having a hard time keeping up, you aren’t alone. Johnson left Atlanta after being heartbroken by Scrappy, then fell for her friend Pleasure P, who initially was her listening ear when things went bad with Scrappy.
“I met Pleasure P years ago through a mutual friend. We were just friends; in fact, he was the shoulder I would cry on when Scrappy hurt me. He would always encourage me and tell me there would be someone out there for me. I fell for him and decided to give the relationship a real chance by moving to Miami. Again, I trusted someone that let me down. I found out he had this girl come out there and said he wanted to see where things would go. Now how are you doing that when you have a girl?” Johnson asks.
“At this point, I don’t take any mess, so when I learned Pleasure P was seeing another girl I was out. Then Scrappy comes back and asks me to be on the show. He said he wanted to come to Miami to be with me and work on his music, which he didn’t. Once he found out about me and Pleasure, he ran. He and I were together in July, in August then he tells me he’s going to Punta Canta with some guy friends; later I find out he’s with his daughter’s mother, then the next thing you know he’s married,” Johnson explains.
For a couple that has gone back and forth for years and have a friendship lasting even longer, Shay says she is finally finished with Scrappy’s games.
“He’s a mama’s boy and I think everybody knows that. Every time he would leave me in the past, I would go away and not say anything. He had all the control in the relationship, but I’m done with it. I’m officially done with Scrappy,” Johnson says confidently.
