Juice WRLD’s Mom Opens Up About The Rapper’s Struggles With Addiction, Says His Inner Circle Were Enablers

Juice WRLD, mom Carmela Wallace

Mother Of Late Musician Juice WRLD Opens Up About The Rapper’s Struggles With Addiction, Says His Inner Circle Were Enablers

This week, Carmela Wallace, mother of late musician Juice WRLD, talked about her son’s shocking death, rise to fame, his new posthumous music and the new documentary about her son. In an emotional interview, Wallace opened up about her son’s battle with addiction and mental health issues and shared insight into his meteoric rise to fame. Wallace also recalled memories of Juice WRLD as a child and opened up about his tragic death due to accidental overdose in 2019.

Carmela Wallace on her son’s inner circle who she viewed as enablers:

“I just felt like his best interest wasn’t being looked out for. I think people had their own agendas. I think they liked the lifestyle. And they were young too, so I have to give them that. They’re young so they don’t see things the way we would see it but I just think that he just didn’t have the people in place to just tell him to stop or to know [what was really wrong]. He just didn’t have that support system in place.”

Carmela Wallace on how one of his songs opened her eyes to the gravity of his struggles:

“I was very honest with him about my fear. I remember there was an incident when I was done working and I was doing errands and I said ‘I want to put on one of his songs.’ This one particular day, I was listening to a song ‘Stuck In The Maze’ and I just began to weep. I just wept and this was months before his death. I was so scared and I told him that. I shared my experience with him. I told him, ‘If you ever die like that, it would change my life forever. I just wouldn’t be the same.’ I just could not stop the tears [when listening to the song] because I knew ultimately the end of that is either you get help or you’re not gonna make it.”

Wallace reveals that Juice WRLD had made the decision to seek professional help before his passing:
[Tamron] “Was he ready to go to rehab?”

“He sounded like it. Months before then in September when I went to see him, he seemed like himself. You know, like my baby. We just had such a good time hanging out. I brought him one of his favorite sandwiches from Chicago. We were just hanging out and you know, he wasn’t doing the lean anymore. I could tell there was a difference in him and that he wasn’t doing the lean. I think he was still doing pills, but he told me he was ready to get help. It was just a special moment. We just had that moment where I just knew he was going to overcome it.”

Wallace on how she heard the news of her son’s overdose and passing:

“My nephew called me at 3am and he told me that he [Juice WRLD] had a seizure. He said ‘But he’s okay. He’s at the hospital. They’ve taken him to the hospital.’ So, I go to the hospital and I just wanted to get to him, I was just trying to get to him. And so, we come in and the guards are there and they’re not letting me go right through. They already knew what was going on, I didn’t know. I just wanted to get to him. I just wanted to see him. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. Once we get up there, they take us into another room and we were just sitting and I just didn’t really understand why we were sitting there. I just needed to get to him, I needed to see if he was okay. Then the doctor came out and said he didn’t make it. He said they tried to revive him. They tried using many things and it just didn’t work. I was just devastated. I had thought, ‘okay, maybe this would be his wake up call and you know he’ll be okay.’ But it just never happened. I was never able to get to him to make sure that he was okay.”