The future Serayah and Joey Bada$$ had been discussing publicly only weeks ago is no longer intact. This week, the actress and singer announced that she had ended their engagement, accusing Joey of “repeated infidelity throughout our relationship” and saying some of those betrayals occurred during “the most vulnerable and meaningful moments of my life.” The disclosure came just 16 days after the pair appeared together at Invest Fest for a conversation called Couples Who Build Together, where they discussed maintaining a committed partnership while pursuing demanding careers.

Commitment had become a defining part of how the couple spoke about their relationship. During a May 2025 interview with ESSENCE, Joey addressed his past embrace of polyamory and said that meeting Serayah had changed what he wanted from a partnership. “I’m very much monogamous now,” he said. Serayah was pregnant with their son at the time, and the two spoke openly about the family they were preparing to raise together.

Read More: Serayah Ends Engagement To Joey Bada$$ After “Repeated Infidelity”

Serayah now describes a much different reality behind that public picture. “I loved deeply, believed wholeheartedly in the life we were building,” she wrote in her breakup statement before explaining why she could no longer remain in the relationship. She later became even more direct on Instagram, posting and deleting what appeared to be a recorded conversation between Joey and another woman discussing Serayah without her knowledge. She presented the clip as part of the “receipts” supporting her accusations. Joey has not publicly responded to the infidelity claims.

Their breakup brings renewed attention to a relationship that unfolded for more than three years, beginning with dating speculation surrounding Joey’s “Show Me” video, then moving into parenthood and an engagement. Along the way, there were moments when the couple pushed back against assumptions about problems between them and others, speaking confidently about the life they were creating together. Serayah’s allegations do not explain every private moment from those years, but they do change the context surrounding a love story that, until this week, appeared to be moving toward marriage.

2021–2023: From First Meeting To A Public Relationship

Before Instagram posts made them an obvious couple, Serayah and Joey Bada$$ had already known each other for nearly two years. They first reportedly crossed paths in 2021 at a mutual friend’s birthday party on a boat, an encounter both would later remember as immediately intriguing. Joey told ESSENCE that his first thought was, “I’ve never seen a woman so beautiful,” while Serayah remembered him as “very mysterious” and “very magnetizing.” Nothing developed between them that night, and it would take roughly another year before they reconnected.

That second meeting changed the dynamic. Serayah recalled feeling the same pull she had noticed the first time, while Joey said he was increasingly wanting to talk to her and spend more time with her. However, by early 2023, whatever was developing privately had not yet been acknowledged publicly. Serayah had confirmed that February that her longtime relationship with Jacob Latimore was over. Within days, photos of her looking cozy with Joey began circulating online. The images were tied to his upcoming video for “Show Me,” which premiered March 1 with Serayah playing his romantic interest.

By summer, there was considerably less ambiguity. Joey referred to Serayah as his “love” in a June birthday post filled with vacation photos, effectively confirming what fans had suspected for months. He followed that in August with a National Girlfriends Day tribute featuring clips of the pair kissing and traveling together. “I heard it’s National gf Day,” he wrote before sharing the montage. Their music-video speculation had become a relationship neither was trying to hide.

2024: Breakup Rumors And A Relationship Under Scrutiny

The first sustained questions about Serayah and Joey came months after they made their relationship public. By the end of 2023, breakup rumors were circulating online, but the couple entered the new year together. When TMZ caught up with them in New York in January 2024, Joey dismissed the gossip and said they were “doing good.” The sighting was enough to quiet talk of a split for the moment, and the two continued appearing together publicly.

That changed in March when footage surfaced of Serayah crying during an emotional conversation with Joey on a Los Angeles sidewalk. The clip showed the pair talking closely before Joey wrapped his arms around her while she continued to cry. Without any context for the discussion, social media quickly filled in the blanks and treated the video as evidence that the relationship was in trouble. Neither Serayah nor Joey explained what had prompted the exchange.

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Joey instead pushed back against the idea that a few minutes of footage could explain what was happening between them. “TMZ all in our business they don’t even know the facts, they don’t see the sh*t we witness only what the cameras catch,” he wrote on Instagram alongside photos of the couple. Serayah reposted his response to her own Stories and added, “Down to ride to the very end ...”

Whatever disagreement had been captured on camera did not end the relationship. Three months later, Joey celebrated Serayah’s birthday with another public tribute. “Celebrating you is easy because you never ask for much and always appreciate everything,” he wrote, calling her “my heart.”

2025: A Baby, A Ring And A Public Promise Of Monogamy

The relationship took on a different level of permanence in 2025. Serayah revealed her pregnancy during the Adore Me runway show at New York Fashion Week in February, turning what had been private news into a very public milestone. She later told ESSENCE that she had been roughly five or six months pregnant when the opportunity came together and that she and Joey agreed the runway felt like the right place to share it. “I was really big on not making my reveal feel contrived or forced,” she said. “So I felt like it was really just God aligning.”

Their May ESSENCE cover interview offered the clearest picture yet of how seriously they were describing the relationship. Joey spoke openly about having embraced polyamory earlier in his life, but said that no longer reflected what he wanted. “That was where I was at in my life at the time,” he explained. “I was very much living a lifestyle of a bachelor and it just aligned with what I was doing.” He credited Serayah and the home they were building together with changing his outlook. “So I’m very much monogamous now,” he said. “This is where I’m at now and this is where I feel secure.”

Their son arrived that summer, Serayah’s first child and Joey’s second. The engagement became public soon afterward. In a July postpartum update, Serayah showed her diamond ring while reflecting on motherhood and the support she had received at home. She called Joey “a good man” and said he had “held it DOWN,” writing about him with the kind of certainty that matched the way both had spoken about their family only months earlier.

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Read More: Joey Bada$$ & Serayah Reveal The Gender Of Their Baby On The Way In Essence Cover Story

2026: Building A Future In Public, Privately Breaking Down

Nothing about their public appearances in summer 2026 suggested that their engagement was nearing its end. Serayah and Joey attended a FIFA World Cup event together in New Jersey on June 27, posing as a couple nearly a year after welcoming their son. Less than two months later, they traveled to Atlanta for Invest Fest, where they were booked for a relationship panel called Couples Who Build Together.

That appearance would become their final major public moment before Serayah called off the engagement. Sixteen days later, she announced that the relationship was over and alleged that Joey had been unfaithful. She said she had decided to leave Joey Bada$$ after confronting what she described as “repeated infidelity throughout our relationship.”

Serayah also expressed she was not speaking publicly for sympathy or retaliation. Instead, she addressed women who find themselves questioning their own instincts when something in a relationship feels wrong. “If your intuition is telling you something is wrong, listen to it.” She also made clear that ending the engagement meant giving up the future she had expected with Joey. “Don’t compromise your values because you’re afraid of losing the future you imagined,” she wrote.

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Read More: Serayah Puts Joey Bada$$ On Blast With Recorded Conversation

Her Instagram Stories were considerably less restrained. Serayah said Joey “needs to be shown for exactly who he is,” accused him of cheating after proposing, and claimed she had “receipts.” She then turned her camera toward what appeared to be a recording of Joey speaking with another woman about Serayah and their relationship. Over the clip, she wrote, “Already talking to another woman about me and what we’re going through… smh.” She deleted the posts soon afterward and left followers with one final message. “Post and delete. If you saw you saw.”

Even with the public callout, Serayah drew a line around what she plans to disclose about their private life. She said she would not continue sharing intimate details because protecting their son’s “peace, privacy, and relationship with both parents” remains her priority. Joey had not directly responded to her accusations as of August 25.

The post Joey Bada$$ & Serayah Relationship Timeline appeared first on HotNewHipHop.