Timbaland Trends After His Past Comments About Aaliyah Resurface

Timbaland was a topic of discussion on social media today (March 10) after a decade-old interview resurfaced online, in which he made comments about his feelings towards the late R&B singer Aaliyah, leaving many people skeptical and concerned.

Back in December of 2011, the Virginia-bred producer’s E! True Hollywood Story aired on E! and within the 40-minute program, which recounted numerous occurrences in Timbaland‘s life from childhood to him getting his footing in the music industry and more, he revealed that he was in love with Aaliyah.

“When I first met Aaliyah, it’s time for the world to hear this. I’ma give up a little secret, I was in love with her. I said but she’s just a baby, I’m old. I said to myself, I’m just gon’ be her brother. Oh man, I was fighting. I was fighting a big war but I loved Aaliyah,” he said.

Timbaland and his music partner-in-crime Missy Elliott both met Aaliyah in 1995 when they worked on Babygirl’s 1996 effort, One in a Million. At the time, Aaliyah was 16 years old while Timbo was 23.

Because of the apparent age gap, many people on Twitter shared their thoughts on the hip-hop beatmaker’s confession.

“Timbaland is a wild nigga for admitting that he married his wife because she reminded him of Aaliyah. Some shit just stay in your head,” one person tweeted.

Another social media user wrote, “Y’all are just now finding out about what Timbaland said about Aaliyah… he literally said in an interview that he had a crush on her when he was 23 and she was like 15/16 and that he married his wife cuz she reminded him of her.. I thought everyone knew this????.”

On the episode, Timbaland later spoke on his ex-wife Monique Mosley, saying that when he first saw her, he knew that would be his wife and also likened her to Aaliyah.

“When I first saw her, I said that’s the girl I’ma marry because she reminds me of Aaliyah,” Timbo said, adding that he thought he saw a ghost when he first spotted Monique.

This same snippet from this 2011 episode resurfaced back in 2019 around the time when the Surviving R. Kelly docu-series aired on Lifetime.

XXL has reached out to a rep for Timbaland for a comment.

Check out the full episode below. Timbaland speaks on Aaliyah around the 17:59-mark.

See more reactions to Timbaland’s comments about Aaliyah below.

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