Rapper Nelly sat for a candid interview where he revealed if he ever plans to marry and why industry relationships often fail.

Now that we’ve watched his longterm relationship with Ashanti fizzle out, and seen him spark up something new with actress Tae Heckard, rapper Nelly gave a surprisingly candid interview about his thoughts on marriage and relationship (which might explain the backstory to of the Ashanti breakup).

He says he does want to get married one day, but no one will pressure him into it. Also, he gave an interesting perspective on industry relationships saying you can’t compare them to “normal” couples. He says you can’t compare a relationship between to non-celebrities who’ve been dating for seven years, to that of a celebrity couple who’s been dating for the same amount of time. He explained that if you factor in all the travel and time spent away from home, the celebrity couple might have only spent three years together. It’s a different kind of math. Here are the highlights:

On industry relationships:

I think people see the relationships that industry folk have and they see the time, but there’re not doing the math. If you do the math on that time, you’ll see that it equals out to something totally different.

On public perception of his relationships:

I shy away from public perceptions about my relationships. You can’t tell me what I should be doing in my relationship. I’m not home everyday. I haven’t seen her in two weeks. You see so many celebrities get married and then they’re divorced in a year. You know why? It’s because when they get finally get together….the -ish that you thought was cute, becomes annoying.

On if he will ever get married:

Yea I think so. But nobody is going to force me. Nobody is going to rush me into anything. Marriage is something you should do when you are ready to do it and you know this is everything. I take marriage very seriously. And I only know two ways of marriage. My parents’ marriage didn’t last at all and my grandparents’ marriage lasted 60 years. I’m either gonna go all the way to 60, or I’m not gonna do it.

On being faithful:

I know me. If I have any questions, I’m going to play on that and eventually that may weigh in on the situation.

On if he’s ever been close to marriage:

I don’t think you’ve been close until you’ve been engaged. (He’s never been engaged).