Days after BET announced that the BET Hip-Hop Awards is on pause “indefinitely,” Benzino hopped on social media to blame rapper Fat Joe for the ceremony’s dwindling popularity.
“Why Fat Joe said it’s gentrification, after they let his a– host the awards two years earlier? Zino said via Instagram Live. “The ratings were the worst ever after he hosted it. Was it gentrification when you was hosting it, Joey? Stop, man. Joe, you’re putting out too much misinformation on the internet, bro. You gotta do better, man.”
Last week, BET Networks and Viacom announced the shocking news, as well as the news that the Soul Train Awards have also been put on hiatus. BET CEO Scott Mills shared that the network is “actively thinking about where those award shows might best live as the media climate.”
In response, Fat Joe claimed the pause “is a form of gentrification.”
“Little by little over the years, quietly they’ve been firing a lot of people behind the scenes at BET and everybody who has something to say and I know ’cause I’ve been working on the BET Hip-Hop Awards for three years. It was like the budget, not for me, but the budget just kept getting chopped and chopped and chopped.”
Fat Joe has not responded to Benzino’s remarks.