DeAndre Cortez Way, professionally known as Soulja Boy, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, actor, streamer, and entrepreneur. His debut single in September 2007 with “Crank That” peaked at number 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Soulja Boy was born on 28 July 1990 in Chicago to parents Tracy Way and Lisa Way and moved to Atlanta at the age of six, where he became interested in rap music. He has a sibling named Deion Jenkins. At age 14, he moved to Batesville, Mississippi, with his father. He has a height of 5 ft 8 in or 1.73 m and has a decent weight.
Soulja Boy Ex-girlfriend Sued Him For Sexual Assault
Soulja Boy has been a name for his works in music mainly. However, he has also repeatedly been controversial in the media outlets for his behavior towards his exes. He has been quite the problematic personality to handle.
TMZ exclusively reported an ex-girlfriend of his is suing him because he allegedly did physically abuse her in separate incidents in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019. The woman who became the victim of such events is identified to be Jane Doe.
The woman claims that while she was pregnant in 2015, Soulja Boy became enraged during a “simple conversation,” leading him to “punch her in the face and the chest until she could no longer stand on her feet.” She claims that Soulja Boy kicked her all over her body, specifically in her belly, subsequently leading to her suffering a miscarriage.
In other incidents, She claimed that Soulja Boy would be extremely violent even to force her to engage in sexual acts threatening her with physical harm if she doesn’t, and threatening her life once in 2019 to rekindle their relationship. Jane Doe is suing for assault, sexual battery, gender violence, and more, plus seeking damages; the civil suit was filed on 11 May 2021 in a California state court.
Jane and his other ex Nia Riley accused him of kicking her in the stomach while she was pregnant.
HipHopdx.com confirmed that Soulja Boy responded to the allegations via Twitter but quickly deleted them after he caught hell for his defense attempts. Soulja Boy tweeted on 12 May 2021. “At the end of the day sometimes we men just pick the wrong females to be with.I’m a legend I can’t date a bum [expletive] that’s out.” He tweeted. “At the end of the day, you can’t force nobody to be with you. If somebody don’t want you no more let them go don’t try and blackmail them to be with you. That’s evil.”
Soulja Boy Has A Long List Of Girlfriends
Soulja Boy is currently reported to be single, but he has a long list of exes, while many of the relationships were on-again, off-again. Some of Soulja Boy’s girlfriends include author Karrine Steffans from May 2013 to September 2014 (Karrine later denied the affair saying the two were only ever friends), Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood co-star Nastassia Smith from 2013 to 2015, Irene The Dream from December 2012 to March 2013, rapper Diamond from September 2010 to August 2013, Kat Stacks, Sheneka Adams, Trina from September 2009 to March 2013, and more.
Soulja Boy is reported to have had an encounter with American adult model Rubi Rose in 2016. He is also rumored to have had an encounter with model India Love in September 2013.
Soulja has dated singer Keri Hilson from August 2009 to October 2010. He had a brief affair in August 2009 with Rihanna and Teyana Taylor in the same year from May to October 2009. There was also some rumor of Soulja Boy to have dated Meagan Good from November 2008 to January 2009, but later in March of 2009, in response to the dating rumor with Soulja, she tweeted, “No, me and Soulja Boy aren’t together, that ship has sailed. Apparently, he doesn’t like chicks.”
Soulja was also reported to have dated rapper Niatia ‘Lil Mama’ Kirkland from September 2007 to November 2008. He also had a brief affair with adult model Jenna Shea in 2009.
Once, Page Six reported a hint to look onto the relationship of his with Tiona Fernan. The outlet was the first to report the news, where Soulja captioned the picture of Tiona with “I Love You @xttiona” on his Instagram account. Prior to this, Soulja was seemed to be in a relationship with Blac Chyna, which was later claimed to be fake to piss off Chyna’s ex, Tyga. Soulja was also said to have been dating Offset’s ex alleged side chick, Summer Bunni.
He has been engaged twice: once to Rosa Acosta for three months in 2009, and then his long-term on-again, off-again girlfriend, Nia Riley, in 2019.
Soulja Boy previously dated Nia Riley, the daughter of the Grammy Award-winning singer Teddy Riley. They dated for six years before they became cast members on Love and Hip-Hop: Hollywood in 2012. In November 2014’s episode of the series, Nia revealed that she was pregnant with Soulja’s child, a boy, but it could not make it as she suffered a miscarriage. The two also appeared on Marriage Boot Camp: Hip-Hop Edition, where one scene went viral, in which Nia screamed while Soulja Boy appeared to get physical with her.
Soulja Boy and his ex-girlfriend, Nia Riley (©: sandrarose.com)
In October 2014, Soulja Boy’s then-girlfriend, Nia Riley, and their daughter, Kamryn, got caught up in a car accident. Then the rapper Soulja posted the news on his Instagram and asked fans to keep his family in their prayers. “My girlfriend @niariley was in an accident and the car flipped over and our daughter was in the car. Need your prayers. Life is short and you never know what could happen I love them and don’t know what I would do if something happened to them,” he concluded. “God first.” Later both Nia and Kamyrn were reported to be home recovering.
On September 6, 2016, the rapper tweeted with pride that he was soon to be a father, writing, “My son will be born soon. Nothing else matters.” While the identity of his baby mama was not clear, but there was no news from him about the baby after that.
Then later, in February 2017, Soulja made another announcement of him to be a father soon by posting a sonogram photo and captioning it, “I’m going to be a father soon. *insert praying pose.” And again, this news was nowhere to be true since the baby's birth didn’t surface in the media outlets.
In December 2013, some news surfaced, where Diamond Shantaniece Mackey filed legal documents claiming Soulja Boy has a son – 5-year-old Portlon. She had also taken a picture in 2007 in a hotel room where she claims she took a pregnancy test which came back positive. She said Soulja took a home DNA test and texted her a picture of a 0% sign and then changed his phone number. However, Diamond believed he was the father of Portlon.
Recently, an unnamed ex-girlfriend of Soulja, identifying herself as “Jane Doe,” has surfaced suing him for violently abusing her.
Soulja Boy Net Worth, And His Career
Though problematic, Soulja Boy has worked continuously in his professional career, ultimately garnering him a lump-sum of wealth. Soulja has an estimated net worth of $30 million as of 2020.
In 2012 alone, Soulja Boy earned over $7 million, which was enough for Forbes to name him one of the Hip Hop Cash Kings for the year.
In March 2021, he made yet another claim about his career, tweeting, “1st rapper to sell a tweet.” He sold a tweet asking how to sell his tweets as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) for an estimated $1,288 in a crypto tweet marketplace. Shortly after his first tweet sale, he sold four more tweets within three hours, per Cryptopolitan.
On 1 May 2016, Soulja Boy tweeted about an upcoming $400 million deal, leading to becoming a controversy in several outlets for several days. Later it was revealed that he was talking about an endorsement deal with World Poker Fund Holdings.
Meanwhile, many of the outlets went deeper to find out about this multi-digit number. The press release announcing the deal said that Soulja Boy would “mobilize his network” to promote the company. He was to join CelebrityWorld.com, launched by WPFH, which will be integrated into their upcoming in-flight gaming system.
Later the company spokesperson Matthew Bird claimed the deal includes both stock and revenue-sharing. Bird also commented on Soulja’s claim of the deal, saying that it was a bit of an exaggeration from Soulja’s side. Moreover, he was getting a lot of pressure from within the entertainment, which led him to put the statement out.
When Soulja developed an interest in rap music, his father provided him with a recording studio where he learned more about rap music. Then he released a hit single, Crank That online, which became the high point in his career. His first-ever independent album was also released online in 2007, titled Unsigned & Still Major: Da Album Before da Album. The rapper of the big hit piqued the interest of Michael Crooms and signed him to his Atlanta-based Interscope records in 2007.
He then released his debut studio album Souljaboytellem.com in October 2007, which became his most successful album to date. His next two albums, iSouljaBoyTellem (2008) and The DeAndre Way (2010) did not match the commercial success of his debut. Nevertheless, some of his singles from both his albums, including Kiss Me Thru the Phone, Turn My Swag On, came out to gain some success.
Between 2011 and 2016, Soulja Boy released numerous mixtapes and singles, stating he feels the pressure to be as creative as possible and put out a ton of music. He did get a chance to collaborate with several fellow rappers, including Migos, ResseMonryBags, Lil Yatchy, Rich the Kid, Nicki Minaj, Chief Keef, and others.
However, Soulja Boy seems to be only a one-hit-wonder; he later associated himself with business. He has made deals with some brands, including Dallas-based Yum Shoes for a street-cred clothing line and a shoe line called Block Star. He also did a scam in 2018 when he rebranded some cheap gaming systems and began selling them on his own websites for a whopping 66 percent more than the Amazon price.
Soulja Boy invested in The Soap Shop just in time for the Corona Virus scare. The company then rushed with the mass production of hand sanitizers earning some heavy revenues.