A$AP Rocky has spoken openly about the long-running tension between himself and Drake, detailing how a friendship that once included collaborations and touring eventually turned into years of veiled shots, online chatter, and public fallout.
In a late January 2026 interview with Akademiks and more recently during an appearance on The Jason Lee Show (which aired August 5, 2026), the 37-year-old Harlem rapper said things began to shift not long after he and Rihanna became a couple in 2020.
Before that, Rocky said the two artists had a solid relationship, having worked together on songs including 2012’s “Fkin’ Problems” and shared the road during the Club Paradise Tour. But from his perspective, the tone changed once Drake began slipping what he saw as subtle jabs into his music.
“I thought he was my mans, I thought he was my dude,” Rocky explained regarding their history.”I think when I got with [Rihanna], he just started throwing shots out of nowhere. I just woke up and felt like he was throwing subs and s***.”
Rocky suggested the issue never fully went away, with fans continuing to revisit the history between the two even as both men have moved forward in their personal lives.
During an appearance on The Jason Lee Show, Jason Lee brought up the long-running narrative around Rihanna and Drake.
“You took his girl,”
Rocky rejected that framing.
“I didn’t. I didn’t. He wasn’t… Look, you know, I’ll let you tell it if that’s what you want to say.”
Lee then used a sports analogy to make his point.
“You know, it’s like football. If you fumble and the star player picks it up, you can’t really be be mad.”
Rocky’s response made it clear he finds the continued fixation on the situation more strange than upsetting.
“You said it. You know what I’m saying? I think really and truly, it’s weird that we done, everybody moved on with their lives and motherf***ers is still strung up on that. It’s just bugged out to me.”
The discussion also touched on Drake’s ICEMAN song “Burning Bridges,” where many listeners took one lyric as an obvious reference to Rocky and Rihanna.
‘Your baby mama ain’t even post your single, damn / Where she at? Yeah, where she at?’
Rocky brushed that line off and called the diss “stupid.”
“This is the problem though. If she would have posted my album, everybody would have been like, ‘You only went number one ’cause your girl posted it.’ She’s not on my album. What single is she supposed to be posting?” he continued. “She posted my album, right? After it went number one.”
This was far from the first time the two artists appeared to trade indirect or direct shots.
Tensions escalated further after Drake’s 2023 track “Fear of Heights,” which many listeners interpreted as containing subliminal lines aimed at both Rihanna and Rocky.
Rocky later responded on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Show of Hands” and then more directly on his own song “Stole Ya Flow”.
On that record, he delivered one of his clearest replies yet.
“First you stole my flow, so I stole yo’ b—h… My baby mama Rihanna, so we unbothered.”
When asked whether that record was specifically about Drake, Rocky said he viewed it as an answer to shots that had come from someone he once considered a friend.
“I started just seeing people who started out as friends and just became foes, seemed like they was unhappy for you and started sending shots,” Rocky noted, according to an E! News report.
“I think that’s what led to any of our misunderstandings… it really ain’t smoke.”
Even so, Rocky has also indicated that he does not expect any reconciliation with Drake.
“It don’t even need to be. For what?”
In a preview of his Jason Lee interview, when asked if he would ever fight Drake in a celebrity boxing match, Rocky responded boldly: “Bare knuckles like the Irish.”
At this stage, he appears more interested in leaving the feud behind and putting his attention into music, other creative work, and raising his three children with Rihanna.