When you’re an veteran industry executive in the game like Murder Inc.’s founder Irv Gotti, you know a little something about the undercover secrets and scandals that happen outside of the public eye.

Take the storied and subtle beef between Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez for example, which Gotti revealed began with a simple phone call from Mimi’s former spouse and music exec Tommy Mottola at 6 a.m.

Gotti sat down with the hosts of Desus and Mero to dish on a few topics, like his new BET series, Tales, and the lesser known facts regarding the roots of Mimi and Jenny From the Block’s shady past. Despite popular opinion, the tension didn’t begin with catty sub-shots at one another, but rather a ploy from Mimi’s apparently scorned ex-husband. According to Gotti, the story goes as such: Mottola phoned up Gotti in the wee hours of 6 a.m. after discovering that he and Murder Inc’s flagship emcee Ja Rule collaborated with Mariah.

“At the time, he hated Mariah Carey, so he was pumping Jennifer Lopez to compete,” he explained. “So he calls me 6 or 7 o’ clock in the morning, and he says, ‘Irv, I need you to do me a favor. I need you make a record with J.Lo, but I want you to put Ja Rule on it and make it a duet.’”

Gotti had already caught on to the fact that Mottola was cooking up trouble because they had just completed their record with Mimi. He also knew that Mottola was using Jenny as a pawn to strike at Mariah. Admittedly, however, he said he was down for a J.Lo collabo. But only under one condition: full creative control without intervention from Mottola.

We’d come to know this collaboration as the “I’m Real (Murder Remix)” of the early 2000s.

“We literally made ‘I’m Real’ in 10 minutes, guys,” Gotti continued.

He adds that he wasn’t so much concerned with sabotaging Mimi like Mottola was. Just as any music executive with a major pop star on his hands would, his goal was a summer smash hit record. And with the Murder Inc.-remixed single dominating Billboard charts, he got just what he wanted out of the deal.

Let him explain it all in the video below.