This Is What Happened When Jay Z’s Mother Told Him She Was In Love With A Woman

American rapper and music mogul, Jay Z has revealed that he cried when his mother, Gloria Carter, told him that she was in love with another woman.

In 2017, the hip-hop mogul’s mother came out as a gay and the development inspired him to write Smile, a track on his 4:44album.

Jay Z 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.”

He further spoke about how she must have felt on having to hide the truth. He said, “Imagine having lived your life for someone else.”

“And you think you’re protecting your kids. And for my mother to have to live 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,” he said.

Watch a preview of the interview.