Tyla Reflects on Curving Kai Cenat With ‘We Friends Though’ Comment Going Viral: ‘The Thing Stretched’

Tyla joined popular streamer Kai Cenat for a livestream in March surrounding the release of her eponymous debut album, and when Cenat asked to go on a date with the South African singer, she curved him.

“We friends, though,” she replied when attempting to let him down easy. However, the friend-zoning took on a life of us its own in the last few months and has continued to pop up around Kai.

Kevin Hart even made a “we friends tho” sign for Kai Cenat when he showed up at his house for their sleepover stream with Druski earlier this week.

Tyla made her debut on The Breakfast Club on Thursday (June 13), where Charlamagne Tha God asked her about the viral curving of the streamer.

“Guys, the thing stretched,” she said, which drew a laugh from CTG. “Don’t put me on the spot, guys. I’ll embarrass [myself].”

Envy hopped in to see if Tyla and Kai joke about the viral exchange, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“We don’t really talk about it,” she replied with a chuckle. “We met in New York for the first time around New Year’s. Then I went on the stream, and it actually was really fun.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Charlamagne asked her about the debates regarding Tyla being a “colored person” from South Africa. She refused to answer, looking for help from her team, and her publicist stepped in to have them move on to another question.

Tyla exploded onto the music scene last year with her “Water” single. The amapiano track won best African music performance at the 2024 Grammys, and reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“Once it was booming on TikTok, I was in shock. I was in a different country for something else,” she told the radio show of seeing “Water” blow up.

Watch Tyla’s Breakfast Club interview below. Talk of the Kai Cenat interaction starts just shy of the 16-minute mark.