The main attraction of Brandy and Monica’s Verzuzwas “The Boy is Mine.” The ladies broke records for Verzuz as over 4 million people tuned in to watch them revisit some of their classic jams, but everyone waited on pins and needles for them to highlight the feuding duet. The 1998 track was a chart-topping earner for both women, but not many people remember who portrayed the “boy” the singers were fighting over in the music video. Actor Mehki Phifer played that role, and he recently reflected on how he came to landing the gig.

Mekhi Phifer, Brandy, Monica, The Boy is Mine
Kevin Winter / Staff / Getty Images

“I had just moved to California from New York, and I was meeting with the people involved with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and Brandy had already been cast in the film as my love interest,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “We were getting ready to shoot the movie in a few weeks, and in between all that, she was working on the music video for ‘The Boy Is Mine.’ They asked me if I wanted to be the boy in ‘The Boy is Mine,’ and I thought it would be a cool little prequel to the film, so I said, ‘For sure!’ The rest is history.”

Mekhi Phifer added that “The Boy is Mine” was the first time he met either Brandy or Monica and he could sense the tension. “There was little stuff there. I think Brandy and her camp were used to having all the attention on her, in some respects,” Phifer added. “At this point, Brandy had played Moesha and had hit singles and had already released an album. And Monica was up-and-coming and doing her thing. So, there may have been some tension there but I didn’t really see it there until maybe a little bit later.” Check out the music for “The Boy is Mine” below.

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