I stopped feeling bad for rapper Fabolous’ baby’s mother Emily Bustamante a long time ago. Probably around the time during one of the season’s of VH1 series Love and Hip-Hop: New York when Emily was fed up with Fab’s disrespect and cheating and moved her son and daughter out of the apartment they shared. Her friend and fellow member of the co-dependent relationship club, Chrissy Lampkin, applauded her decision to let the relationship go for what seemed for good. She kept speaking of this newfound independence and that she would finally start her own life that doesn’t involve Fab.
However, Emily already started off on the wrong foot by moving out of Fab’s apartment just to move into an apartment that he would be financing. Granted, she is still living without him, but she would still not be fully independent of him. In the following episode after the dramatics of her moving out into an empty apartment with nothing but a candle and wine, she tells the rest of the cast that she and Fab had reconciled and she moved back in. I know with filming considered, there was probably a little over two weeks between episodes, but that is still relatively soon for someone to forgive 8 years of ongoing disrespect.
Emily signed up to be on the show because she felt that she had been supporting Fab and his career for years, but he never let her emerge from his shadows. In her own words, she has said that people did not even know he had a girlfriend all of these years which allowed him to act “as single as a dollar bill.” He has played a fatherly role to her daughter for the duration of their relationship and even share a son together. The relationship and even her pregnancy did not stop him from cheating.
Later on in the season, the new cast mate and rapper Juelz Santana’s girlfriend, Kimbella, reveals that she slept with Fab while Emily was pregnant with their son. Rather than leaving Fab once and for all, she lashes out at Kimbella, his infidelities and disrespect personified. All this time I kept saying that Fabolous was a terrible man who was irresponsible in his treatment of women. He exploited their love for him only to put them a comfortable enough place in his life for him to do whatever he pleases.
His recent antics prove that the blame has been misplaced this entire time. Recently Fab posted a picture on Instagram of a naked woman with nothing but her thong on standing by a windowsill. The caption read, “Is that the Empire State Building, or nah?”. Emily responded on the comments in the photo asking if the lady in question was her. Her response was that Fabolous would never exploit her like that and that “her hair stay’s done”. I was laughing at her simply because, the father of your child who you’ve been with for 8 years publishes a photo of another women and your response has the nerve to include an attack on the women? Fabolous exploit’s Emily daily with his disrespect for her, gallivanting other women around her and in public frequently, but you feel that is somehow better than him posting a photo of a naked woman on social media? Please.
People only treat you how you let them. All these years, Emily has never required any respect, commitment or accountability on Fab’s part to get all of the benefits of a relationship from her. To expect him to treat her any better than the low standard she set from the beginning would be farce. He has no incentive to and no reason to because she’s never required one. Fabolous is a very insecure man whose behavior is only a manifestation of the mindset he has for women and for himself.
He knows no better because it’s never been required of him to do better. As a result, he seeks out women with low self-esteem who feel that they must go above and beyond to keep a man that has no intentions of being kept. No woman should ever have to go to these lengths to keep a man, and your intentions for doing anything for a man should have nothing to do with keeping him. That would mean there is a chance of him leaving, and that shouldn’t be a fear that an individual has if they are in a secure relationship.
Ultimately, I hope for Emily’s daughter’s sake that her mother does not ever go back to Fab ever again. He has proven to her time and time again that he has no intentions of treating her with any respect. He has even said that he has no plans to marry her, or anyone either. This 35-year-old man is toxic and has no intentions of respecting you – move on. We’ve all been in a situation similar to hers both minor and severe but if you love yourself enough you won’t withstand anyone who doesn’t reflect that.