Photo Credit: Rick Ross/Instagram
Rick Ross reflected on the death of rap icon DMX on the PEOPLE Every Day podcast with Janine Rubenstein where he explained how he could relate to his struggles. Regarding his drug addiction, Ross said, “That’s something that’s been on my heart for so many years.”
For context, DMX came out of rehab a couple years ago and was getting back into the swing of performing and had even started preaching. Unfortunately he relapsed in his final days and passed away at 50 from a heart attack related to an overdose.
About X, whose real name is Earl Simmons’ overdose, Ross said, “Me having family members that suffer with addiction, I understood the struggle that he was up against. So it’s something that was really painful. Of course, I didn’t expect this. And it just hurt. So if anything else, it should motivate us. Let’s do what Dark Man X would have wanted us to do. Let’s turn up. Let’s go to the next level.”
Ross reminisced on the time they worked together on Just in Case, the lead single for the soundtrack of the Epix series Godfather of Harlem. “We filmed the video. I got to be on the set for a whole day with [him]” he fondly recalls.
“I got to see the funny side of him, we got to laugh at a few jokes,” Ross continues. “I saw him really focused and turned up. And hearing about his addiction many years ago, being in the industry, it’s something that’s been in my heart the most.”
Ross previously spoke about his seizures he was having in 2018 in his memoir Hurricanes that they were due to his codeine use. “That mixed with the things I was drinking, the other drugs I was doing, and on top of not resting,” he told PEOPLE while promoting the book in 2019. “[I don’t think] one particular thing would have killed me. But everything combined?”
After realizing he was risking his life, Ross went on to lose 75 pounds. It’s events like this that caused him to financially back the black owned telehealth system Jetdoc to help encourage others to taket better control of their health.
