Jay-Z, American rapper, says he cried when his mother, Gloria Carter, revealed to him that she was in love with another woman.
In 2017, the hip hop mogul’s mother came out as a lesbian and the development inspired him to write ‘Smile’, a track on his ‘4:44’ album.
The ‘Empire State of Mind’ rapper said he had previously known that his mother was gay but they talked about it for the first time eight months ago while he was working on the album.
The rapper said her disclosure forced out tears of joy from him.
Jay-Z said this in an interview with David Letterman on his new Netflix show ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction’.
“For her to sit in front of me and tell me ‘I think I love someone’ … I really cried,” the rapper said in a clip from the yet to be aired interview.
“I cried because I was so happy for her that she was free.
“I don’t even believe in crying because you’re happy. I don’t even know what that is. What is that?”
In the song ‘Smile’, Gloria Carter revealed to the world that she is gay in a speech about what it was like for her to live a lie.
“Imagine having lived your life for someone else,” Jay-Z told Letterman.
“And you think you’re protecting your kids. And for my mother to have to lived as someone that she wasn’t and hide and like, protect her kids — and didn’t want to embarrass her kids, and you know, for all this time.”
