Nas' former lover and the mother of his child, Carmen Bryan, has spent years doing interviews to address rumors about the direction her life took after the rapper was no longer required to pay support for the rearing of their daughter Destiny. This week that all changed, when she gave the public the opportunity to hear her truth directly from the source, with the release of a new book.

During her 2017 sitdown with VladTV, Bryan touched on what it was like being a mom who was able to avoid a 9-to-5 job thanks to the lifestyle Nas was obligated to sustain for Destiny. She recalled dreaming about being a constant presence for her daughter and bore no bones about how happy she was to eventually embrace that full-time maternal role. In the same breath, Bryan sounded off on how cautious she had to be about getting comfortable as a beneficiary of such an arrangement in acknowledgment of the fact that "Child support is not an income for you. It's supposed to support the child."

"It was like a gift and a curse, the child support situation. Anyone who gets child support, you know it's not going to last forever anyway. And, when you're getting a check every month you become a little content with that," Bryan told Vlad. "Some people don't want to go above and beyond that."

It was only a couple of years prior to that interview that Bryan was confronted by the perception that grew out of various blogs reporting that she had allegedly found herself couch-surfing and squatting in the homes of loved ones after Destiny became 20 years old and no longer commanded a check. By Bryan's own accounts, it wasn't like she spent all of her time sitting on her behind once Destiny grew to be self-sufficient.

Not only had the Queens native been flying back and forth between New York and L.A. to put a musical release together - her 2006 book "From Nas to Jay-Z, from Seduction to Scandal–a Hip-Hop Helen of Troy Tells All" made her a former New York Times best-selling author.

Now Bryan is back on her book grind thanks to her latest release, "Life After Child Support - When the checks stop coming," which she describes as "a cautionary tale about outgrowing financial dependency and moving forward." Fans interested in getting an inside scoop on what the transition from a full-time mom of a celebrity's child can do so by purchasing the e-book for $4.99 here.