Nelly’s Forgotten Rivalry With Allen Iverson Resulted In This Legendary Sports Moment

In the world of Hip-Hop and pro sports, crossover moments are nothing new—but the playful, ego-charged rivalry between rapper Nelly and NBA legend Allen Iverson remains one of the more curious footnotes in pop culture history.

Though little-known to the general public, the two icons shared a long-running, friendly feud that played out across multiple arenas—both literal and metaphorical.

As confirmed by legendary producer Jermaine Dupri during an appearance on 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony, one of their most memorable showdowns happened not in a packed stadium or on a music stage, but in Dupri’s own home gym in Georgia.

The event? A heated game of H-O-R-S-E. The winner? Nelly. But the victory came with a few asterisks. “Yeah, he lost,” Dupri told Anthony and his cohosts of Iverson’s defeat.

“I mean, to his defense, y’all be shooting the ball so high, right? And my ceiling ain’t high as the stadium. So, unfortunately, a couple of times he shot the ball up, it hit the ceiling instead of going in. And he was drinking. He had a couple of drinks and he wasn’t just focused like, ‘Okay, I got to shoot the ball like [a] straight line.’”

“But Nelly was shooting like my gym was his gym. He knew not to shoot this NBA shot, you know what I mean? And he kept saying, ‘I’ma beat you.’ And I think Nelly knew that Chuck was going to shoot that [way] and it was going to get stuck. And [Iverson] was like, “Uh, let me do it again.” And [Nelly said] ‘Nah, I went, you went. This is what it is.’”

While Nelly’s familiarity with the gym and Iverson’s inebriated state gave the rapper a clear edge, the rivalry extended far beyond one backyard game.

According to Carmelo Anthony, this kind of competition was constant. “I know the relation between those two. It was heavy competition between those two, but friendly competition.”

Nelly, a former standout athlete, never shied away from going toe-to-toe with “Chuck”—Iverson’s nickname. As Melo recalled, “He felt like he could challenge Chuck in sports because, for one, we the same height. And I done did the same sh*t you did in high school. I’m athletic, too.”

Their rivalry even spilled into celebrity flag football games. “Nelly used to come into the Chuck sh*t, the competition between those two. I’m like, ‘Nelly got the number one song and Chuck is the number one ni**a out there,’” Melo recalled.

“And it’s like they competing like these ni**as play against each other every single day… they go hug and then Chuck starts crying and sh*t. It’s just like that was the relationship between between them two.””

It wasn’t about winning or losing—it was about pushing each other, celebrating greatness, and turning friendly trash talk into legendary moments.

Watch Jermaine Dupri speak on Nelly and Allen Iverson’s competitive rivalry below.