Mendeecees Harris posted a short message on Instagram this May: three words, a Harlem hashtag, and a burst of exclamation energy. “I’m smiling everyday I wake up,” he wrote.
For anyone who knows what Harris has been through, those words carry a lot of weight.
Harris is best known as a central figure on Love & Hip Hop: New York. The long-running VH1 reality series brought his relationship with Yandy Smith into millions of living rooms, and his storylines were often heavy ones. In 2015, he was sentenced to federal prison on drug trafficking charges. It reshaped his public image and put his family through genuine difficulty. By around 2019, he was home again. The quieter, slower work of rebuilding a life began.
Love & Hip Hop gave Harris a platform. But his personal struggles played out in front of a very large audience too. Coming out the other side of that kind of public scrutiny, that kind of caption is not a throwaway line. Coming from Harris, it sounds like something earned.
The Harlem hashtag carries weight too. Harris has always been deeply connected to that neighborhood. It’s where he grew up and where his identity took shape. Harlem has long been home to people who carry the neighborhood with them. Harris fits that mold completely. There’s a strong tradition of resilience tied to that place. A post about waking up smiling with Harlem in the caption taps into something bigger than a single morning mood.
His marriage to Yandy Smith has been a constant through all of it. The two have been together for years, navigating legal battles and public scrutiny. They have also raised a blended family through all of it. Reality cameras were rolling for much of it. They married in 2017 in a ceremony that VH1 aired as part of Love & Hip Hop. The relationship has had its rocky chapters – longtime viewers know that well – but both have been public about their commitment. The family they’ve built together has held.
Smith has stayed a visible presence in entertainment and business beyond the show, working as a TV personality, entrepreneur, and advocate. Longtime fans know how much has changed for both of them. Seeing Harris reach a place of genuine daily happiness is striking. The contrast with those 2015 sentencing headlines could not be sharper.
The Love & Hip Hop franchise has built its audience on real, unfiltered stories. Harris and Smith’s arc – from very public legal trouble to years of quiet rebuilding – is one of the more genuinely compelling journeys the series has followed.
In 2026, Harris has maintained a fairly quiet social media presence. He’s not in any obvious press cycle, and the May post reflects that – personal, direct, and free of any promotional layer. A man from Harlem sharing a simple truth about his mornings.
Celebrity culture has a tendency to amplify drama faster than it amplifies gratitude. Feuds travel. Clap-backs go viral. A Love & Hip Hop veteran quietly saying he wakes up smiling every morning? That’s the kind of update that’s easy to scroll past and worth stopping for.
Mendeecees Harris is doing well. He’s smiling every morning, rooted in Harlem, and clearly in a good place. The past decade brought a lot his way. That is genuinely worth celebrating.
