JAY-Z got super personal on his new album 4:44, especially the point where he reveals that his mother is gay. “Mama had four kids, but she’s a lesbian,” he raps on “Smile.” “Had to pretend so long that she’s a thespian.” Gloria Carter, who speaks on the outro of the song, recently stopped by the D’USSE Friday podcast, where she talked to B. Axelrod, Memphis Bleek and Rel Carter about coming out to her son.
“I just finally started telling (Jay) who I was,” Gloria said. “Besides your mother, this is the person that I am. This is the life that I live. So my son started actually tearing. ‘Cause he’s like, ‘That had to be a horrible life, Ma’. I was like, ‘My life was never horrible. It was just different.’ So that made him want to do a song about it.”
“I was never ashamed of me,” she said. “In my family, it was something that was never discussed…I’m tired of all the mystery. I’m gonna give it to ‘em. I don’t have to worry about anybody wondering if I’m in the life or not, I’m gonna tell them. So now that I told you, what do you have to talk about? So now maybe you can focus on the phenomenal things I do, so focus on that…Now it’s time for me to be free.”
Listen in full below.
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