Lauren London just gave a new meaning to the phrase “love don’t cost a thing” while detailing how she and her late partner, rapper Nipsey Hussle, began dating.
In a recent podcast appearance, the actress shared a heartfelt and candid story about how she first crossed paths with the deceased West Coast native. While giving fans a glimpse into the early days of her career, London explains how a gift exchange turned into a relationship that would later see her and Nipsey become one of Hollywood’s most iconic and beloved couples. London started off by recounting what she could from her fuzzy memory of the moment of professional curiosity that led her to seek Nipsey out.
“My memory is so whack these days,” she joked before diving into the tale. “But I do remember how we met. I was on set, and at the time he had dropped his Crenshaw mixtape. All the ladies on set—the glam squad—they were listening to it. And I thought it’d be so dope to get them his mixtape and some Crenshaw stuff.”
Determined to make it happen, London asked a mutual friend to reach out to Nipsey on her behalf, hoping to get a discount on her bulk purchase of his merch. Spoiler alert, she ended up paying full price for the gifts intended for her team.
“Nip never reached out,” she laughed. “His manager then reached out to my friend and I didn’t get the discount either, so I was like, okay, I guess he’s not trying to give me a—it’s fine!”
Although the discount didn’t come through, fate had other plans. After purchasing the gifts for her colleagues, London decided to follow Nipsey on social media. Soon after, Nipsey slid into her DMs.
“He messaged me like, ‘Hey, thanks for the support. Appreciate you,’” she said with a smile. “He gave me his number and I was like, I don’t do DMs.”
Lauren London proceeded to remark on the methodical nature of her move following Nipsey, revealing that there were rumblings of his and her eligibility together for years within her friend group before they became involved.
“I thought he was fine,” she said. “First of all, me following him was very, I was like, he took the bait. I thought, I always thought he was very attractive. I actually had friends that knew him that were like, I think you guys will get along years before that. But I was just on my single mom stuff. I wasn’t really like, whatever.”
After they exchanged numbers, London ended up texting him directly and they hit it off as a couple seemingly as quickly as Nipsey adopted her nickname as a loveable pet name.
“So I text him like, ‘Hey, this is a Boogie. I don’t really do the dm, but here are my sizes,’” she said. “And he sent back a funny little thing and he’s like, yeah, I know you from LA…That was like a five to eight-hour conversation the first day. And that was it from there.”
London and Nipsey Hussle became symbols of love, loyalty and resilience, both in their private lives and in the public eye. In past interviews, the two often spoke highly of each other, with Nipsey once describing their connection as more than just romance.
“We’re very real with each other,” Nipsey said. “We inspire each other to be better people.”
Sadly, their love story was cut short when Nipsey was tragically killed in March 2019. In the years since, London has often paid tribute to her late partner, describing their relationship as “one of the purest loves” she has ever experienced.
