Celebrity

Erica Mena returned to Love & Hip Hop: New York this season, and of course, a storyline had to involve her ex-girlfriend, Cyn Santana. Mena's alleged actions in a most recent episode were controversial and the television personality says she has received death threats.

Published on January 8, 2020

Erica Mena returned to Love & Hip Hop: New York this season, and of course, a storyline had to involve her ex-girlfriend, Cyn Santana. Mena’s alleged actions in a most recent episode were controversial and the television personality says she has received death threats.

Erica Mena on ‘Love & Hip Hop’ in the early years

Mena first appeared in the franchise as a supporting cast member on the second season of Love & Hip Hop: New York. After that, she was promoted to a main cast member for the third season. She remained a main cast member through the fifth season. Mena left the franchise after that and did not return until 2017.

She came back on a different series, joining Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta as a cast member for its seventh season. Mena then returned to the New York series for its tenth season.

Mena was first introduced as a rival of Kimbella Vanderhee’s and they had one of the first violent fights in the show’s history. She then entered a relationship with her manager, Rich Dollaz. That dissolved and she then started dating Cyn Santana. When they broke up, she began a relationship with rapper Bow Wow. She refused to appear in the season five reunion special and later said that the season would be her last one.

A few months later, she and Bow Wow ended things. Once she joined the franchise for the Atlanta series, her storyline mostly chronicled her feud with Stevie J as she tried to steer her Estelita Quintero away from him as her manager.

Now, back on the New York series, she is now in a relationship with Safaree Samuels and her storyline chronicles their wedding and her pregnancy.

What happened on the most recent episode

The most recent episode of Love & Hip Hop: New York showed a scene where it was said that Erica was trying to hook up Joe Budden (the ex-boyfriend of her ex, Cyn Santana) with his ex-girlfriend, Tahiry Jose. Though Santana and Mena had a very bad split that was documented on the show years ago, they seemed to be on better terms. Now, Santana is very upset at Mena’s supposed actions.

“Joe is a grown man. Whoever Joe loves, he gon’ be with. I’m just hurt and I’m like, appalled at Erica. We loved and cared for each other once upon a time but all of a sudden, Cyn and Joe are no longer together and Erica is so invested in putting him back with his ex?” said Santana in the episode.

Mena and Santana eventually sat down about the matter and could not come to an understanding. After disagreeing about Mena’s impact and intent, the conversation halted and Santana walked out.

Erica Mena says she’s getting threats

Mena sent out many tweets addressing the episode and responding to viewers who were critical of her behavior. She said that the editing of the episode only showed certain things.

She tweeted in part, “I understand how it looks. But when will y’all understand editing is going to show you what it wants to show you. Certain people celebrated at my baby shower for a reason. And that scene from last night was one of them. If I was really all these things why am I ALWAYS blessed?”

After going back and forth with several fans, she opened up and said that she was receiving death threats and alluded to a lot of the storyline being played up for television because this is a job to them.

“At this end of the day this is a television show. And to be receiving death threats off [sic] this is completely disgusting. No one is perfect but we all are great at our job. To threaten someone because they get their job done is sick,” she said.

Love & Hip-Hop: New York airs Mondays on VH1.

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