Before the wedding, before the reality shows, before all of it, there was a man in a Polo outfit with a country twang following Tameka "Tiny" Harris into a Victoria's Secret at the mall. That, per Harris herself, is how hip-hop's most enduring love story actually began.

In a recent appearance on "Rickey Smiley on the Spot," Harris looked back on the origin story she and T.I. have told in bits and pieces over the years, offering the fullest version yet of how a chance mall run-in became the foundation of a 25-year relationship, per Complex.

The story actually starts with a miss. Harris and T.I. first crossed paths at Jazze Pha's Noontime Studios in Atlanta, where the young rapper was apparently trying to make his presence known. "I blew him off or whatever," Harris told Smiley. "He was so young at the time."

"I noticed that he looked damn good. I still remember what he looked like, what he had on."

— Tiny Harris, on running into T.I. at the mall

Close to a year later, Harris spotted T.I. again at the mall, this time while out with her daughter Zonnique, who was around 4 years old. The Polo outfit and the country twang registered immediately. "I noticed that he looked damn good," she said. "I still remember what he looked like, what he had on." They talked briefly, then Harris walked into Victoria's Secret. T.I. followed. Numbers were exchanged inside the lingerie store.

T.I. has told his version of the story too, recently on Hot 97, joking that he had already had his eye on Harris after seeing her in XSCAPE's music video for "Just Kickin' It" and had been plotting to meet her. His phrasing, per reports: he planned to "get that little one."

Their first date was, by Harris's account, charmingly unglamorous: a $3 café, chicken wings, and a parked car, with a 4-year-old Zonnique along for the ride. They talked on the phone for months after that. Harris said she knew T.I. had serious potential when she watched him perform at Atlanta's Bankhead venue Bounce and saw every person in the building singing every word of every song. "I said, 'Okay, he's got potential. He's going to be somebody.'"

The couple married in 2010 and have three children together. Despite a publicly documented rough patch in the mid-2010s, including a brief separation and divorce filing, they have remained together. Harris spoke about the endurance of their marriage in a TV One Uncensored episode earlier this year, noting that the couples who last are often the ones who chose to stay and grow through the hard parts.