Source: Graham Finney/WENN / WENN
Juice WRLD‘s family is speaking out after the 21-year-old rapper’s untimely death. His mom, Carmella Wallace, spoke to TMZ and provided more context for his struggles with prescription drug abuse and his goal to help others beat their addictions.
“We loved Jarad with all of our hearts and cannot believe our time with him has been cut short,” Wallace said of Juice, birth name Jarad Higgins. “As he often addressed in his music and to his fans, Jarad battled with prescription drug dependency.”
Juice rapped about drugs often in his songs and his family says it wasn’t to promote abusing them but instead to help others who were battling addiction who may have felt isolated in their fight. “Addiction knows no boundaries and its impact goes way beyond the person fighting it,” Wallace said. “Jarad was a son, brother, grandson, friend and so much more to so many people who wanted more than anything to see him defeat addiction.”
Juice WRLD’s family believes his story can inspire others in the future. “We hope the conversations he started in his music and his legacy will help others win their battles as that is what he wanted more than anything,” Wallace said. Carmella concluded by thanking Juice’s fans, friends and family for their condolences during the incredibly hard time, saying, “We know that Jarad’s legacy of love, joy and emotional honesty will live on.”
Juice WRLD passed after his private flight landed in Chicago from L.A. on Sunday. According to law enforcement, agents and officers were waiting for Juice WRLD and his people at the airport and found 41 “vacuum-sealed” bags of marijuana, six bottles of prescription codeine cough syrup, and guns. In the middle of their search, Juice started “convulsing (and) going into a seizure,” according to sources. Eventually, he was rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 3:14 a.m. Law enforcement sources say the rapper swallowed several Percocet pills upon landing when he learned that federal agents were about to search the plane.
Juice has had multiple run-ins with the law where authorities have searched him and his crew, including one search that took place at LaGuardia Airport in New York last year and another search that took place in November of this year at Los Angeles International Airport. Sources close to Juice believe he was racially profiled as a young Black man who has recently gained financial success and fame. Just in 2018, he had signed a reported $3 million deal with Interscope Records.
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