Lil Wayne in Prison Memoir: “I’ve Never Been This Close to Suicide Before”

Lil Wayne recently released his prison memoir Gone ’Til November, based on diary entries from his stint at New York’s Rikers Island. In one passage from the book, Wayne revealed that he officiated a same-sex wedding between two fellow inmates. Now, an excerpt on Rolling Stone has shown that Wayne contemplated suicide while in prison. In a chapter called “Harshness,” Wayne writes, “One thing that stood out was how I’ve never been this close to suicide before. It’s truly a new reality for me.” He also recalls being present when someone else tried to kill themselves. At first, he writes, he did not dwell on it because “jail desensitizes a lot of things.” Read the full excerpt here.

Wayne’s Gone ’Til November passage does not confirm or deny any suicide attempts while he was at Rikers. In his verse on Solange’s A Seat at the Table track “Mad,” however, Wayne alludes to an attempt: He raps, “And when I attempted suicide, I didn’t die/I remember how mad I was on that day/Man, you gotta let it go before it get up in the way/Let it go, let it go.” It is not currently clear if the verse is connected to Wayne’s time in prison.

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