T.I. may have recently implied that he has personally and professionally parted ways with Iggy Azalea, but now he's saying his words -- which are immortalized on video -- were taken out of context.

In an interview with the Associated Press, T.I. attempted some damage control following claims that he hasn't spoken with Iggy in a while. He said, "That's still my partner. Her life has taken her in a different direction. My life is still as it was before. But Iggy is doing what she feels makes Iggy happy. That's what she should do. We're focused on making the next Iggy record and dodge the same adversities we faced last time."

He reiterated that he felt a need to give Iggy some space after one too many Twitter diatribes where she lashed out against her critics. In his radio interview with Hot 97's Ebro in the Morning, T.I. said the turning point happened when Iggy fired back at rapper Q-Tip, who tried to educate Iggy on hip hop's larger historical context (You can— and should— read all of his tweets to Iggy over at Complex). After T.I. stepped in and smoothed it all over, Iggy wouldn't let it go, so he stepped away.

But T.I. didn’t mean that he’s done with Iggy forever or anything. He said, "It's definitely not a 'sever my ties, walk away, I'm upset’ thing. It was more so like, OK, you have a lot on your plate right now. I'm going to pull back or wait until you come to a place where you're ready to come back to the table, so we can start again and make history some more."

T.I. also said that he and Iggy "speak without having to speak to each other," which must be news to Iggy as a recent succession of tweets (her preferred method of communication) is probably what sparked T.I.'s clarification.

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