At the age of 12 years old, Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. Aka Lil Wayne shot himself in the chest with a gun he found in his mother’s Hollygrove apartment in New Orleans. Lucky for Lil Wayne, the bullet missed his heart by two inches and came out of his back. Lil Wayne immediately dialed 911 and was saved by officer Robert Hoobler who responded to the call and drove Lil Wayne to the emergency room in his squad car, wayne was in the emergency room for two weeks.
Lil Wayne pulled the trigger because his mother told him he couldn’t rap anymore.
After seeing how passionate he was about rapping, Lil Wayne’s mother, Jacida Carter, allowed him to pursue a rap career as long as he didn’t swear. Lil Wayne’s 1999 debut, Tha Block Is Hot, doesn’t have any profanity. Jacida Carter also opens up about Lil Wayne’s suicide attempt on “Used 2” off Tha Carter V. In a spoken outro, she said, “I still don’t know today. Was he playing with the gun or was it an accident? I be wanting to ask him but I never asked him after all these years.. I never really found out about what really happened with him and that shooting.”
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Lil Wayne opened up about the incident on “London Roads,” off his 2015 Free Weezy Album. “Ms. Cita, I remember goin’ in your gun drawer/Puttin’ it to my chest and missin’ my heart by centimeters, oh Lord.”
Lil Wayne admitted that it was a suicide attempt during a guest verse on Solange’s 2016, “Mad.” “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.”
Lil Wayne also opened up about the incident on “Let It All Work Out” from his 12th solo album Tha Carter V. “I found my mama’s pistol where she always hide it / I cry, put it to my head and thought about it / Nobody was home to stop me, so I called my auntie / Hung up, then put the gun up to my heart and pondered / Too much was on my conscience to be smart about it / Too torn apart about it, I aim where my heart was pounding / I shot it, and I woke up with blood all around me / It’s mine, I didn’t die, but as I was dying / God came to my side, and we talked about it / He sold me another life, and he made a prophet.” The song samples Sampha’s 2013 track Indecision.
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Lil Wayne tattooed “Bang, Bang” next to the gun wound in memory of the incident.
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