Celebrity

‘Love & Hip Hop’: Karen ‘KK’ King and the Alleged Crime That Landed Her on ‘America’s Most Wanted’

Since her introduction to Love & Hip Hop, there have always been underlying references to Karen "KK" King's criminal activities. Although she's racked up a lot of fraud and theft charges, not many people know about the alleged crime which got her featured on America's Most Wanted.

by Trey Mangum

Published on April 19, 2020

3 min read

Karen King and Scrapp DeLeon’s history on ‘Love & Hip Hop’

King and her sons, Scrapp DeLeon and Lyndon “Sas” Smith, were first introduced in the fifth season of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta. King has been a supporting cast member since her introduction in the fifth season.

DeLeon was a supporting cast member in season 5, and after his incarceration, returned as a main cast member in season 8 and has remained one since. Smith was a supporting cast member in season 5.

King was introduced as a longtime family friend of Stevie J and the manager for her sons’ rap careers. In the fifth season, the matriarch works hard to keep her family together while DeLeon prepares to go to jail and has a lot of drama with Tiarra Becca, the mother of his child, and his girlfriend, Tommie Lee.

For season 6 she is an ally to Lee and tries to help her overcome alcoholism. She also works to help her reconnect with her mother, but everything goes wrong and King and Lee end up falling out too. In later seasons, most of King’s storylines involve her working to get DeLeon released.

Smith was only featured mostly as a background player during the season he was a supporting cast member. Late last year, he was arrested on sex trafficking charges.

Karen King and her sons were accused of a kidnap and assault

Throughout the series, King is portrayed to be a powerful woman with an intimidating criminal history. She is said to be “feared” in many of Atlanta’s circles.

During the fifth season of the show, King was arrested and charged with financial identity fraud, theft, and first-degree forgery. She was cleared on all charges.

However, alleged crimes like this aren’t why King was known and isn’t why she was featured at one point on America’s Most Wanted. She and her sons, including DeLeon and Smith, were once wanted for kidnapping and assaulting the father of her sons, Lyndon Baines Smith. She went on the run and her sons were later brought into custody. King apparently planned the attack out with her sons and two of their friends. She was on the run for over a year. When King was finally found, she had died her hair and had several different forms of identification and credit cards.

What exactly happened after they were charged is unknown. While there is a lot of information online about their arrest and the charges, not much is known about how they were released and why. It is unclear if charges were dropped or if they got light sentences.

However, in a VH1 video around the time she and her sons joined the show, King described her charge as a “murder-for-hire” and that she was accused of hiring her sons to murder her husband.

King explained in the video, “I’ve had a situation where my children were angry with their father for not being a good bad. The father beat up my children’s half brother and they came and reciprocated. But they were not being there for their whole life. They were angry, and this was the opportunity to get back. That’s what I see. I was vindicated. Yes, I was on the run…but the best part of it is, my kids did not get three life sentences, I did not get three life sentences…that’s what we were all facing. I was able to prove that these kids were acting on emotion and not on hate. I had to do what I had as a mother to help my children.”