Rapper Jay-Z’s mother, Gloria Carter, tied the knot with her long-time partner, Roxanne Wilshire, in a star-studded wedding in New York.
Jay-Z and his celebrity wife Beyonce were among those witnessing the event that happened on Sunday, July 2 night.
Hollywood celebrities in attendance included Tyler Perry and Kelly Rowland. Others were Tina Knowles and Robin Roberts.
The wedding comes five years after Gloria revealed she is lesbian through her son’s song, ‘Smile’.
In the song, Gloria revealed she lived a double life, one of happiness and the other of fear; fear of what people would think and say, and even do about her new status.
Jay-Z was widely praised in the West for accepting and giving his mother the platform to express herself.
In 2019, he also gave her a shout-out during the GLAAD Media Awards, for allowing him to tell her story.
Beyonce has also previously talked highly of her uncle who openly came out as gay, and lauded him for strongly battling HIV.
Jay said his mother came out while he was still putting together 4:44 and their conversation led to the creation of “Smile” the very next day.
The track features a poem, written by Gloria, which she wrote on a plane headed to Los Angeles to see her son.
Gloria figured she needed to assist him in completing the song.
After presenting him with the poem, Jay recorded her as she recited it over the phone.
“I was sitting there and I was telling him one day. I just finally started telling him who I was. Besides your mother, this is the person that I am, you know? This is the life that I lived,” Gloria said in a 2017 appearance.
“So my son started actually, like, tearing because he was like, ‘That had to be a horrible life, ma.’ I was like, ‘My life was never horrible.
It was just different.’ So that made him want to do a song about it.”
