Gloria Carter, the mother to rap icon Jay Z is officially a Mrs. after tying the knot with her partner Roxanne Wilshire in New York Sunday evening.
Scores of celebrities were in attendance, including Mrs. Carter’s daughter-in-law Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, Tina Knowles-Lawson, Tyler Perry and Robin Roberts, among other stars. TMZ sources said that the wedding – held in Tribeca – was a star-studded yet intimate affair with a reception that lasted well past midnight.
Mrs. Carter’s firstborn son Jay Z first opened up about his mother’s sexual orientation in the 2017 hit song Smile off his 4:44 album.
“Mama had four kids, but she’s a lesbian/Had to pretend so long that she’s a thespian/Had to hide in the closet, so she medicate/Society shame and the pain was too much to take,” he crooned. “Cried tears of joy when you fell in love/Don’t matter to me if it’s a him or her/I just wanna see you smile through all the hate/Marie Antoinette, baby, let ’em eat cake.”
The 53-year-old Brooklyn native further disclosed to David Letterman in his Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction that he cried tears of joy when he found out that his mother had a new love in her life.
“Imagine having to live your life as someone else and you think you’re protecting your kids,” he said. “For her to sit in front of me and tell me ‘I think I love someone,’ I really cried…I cried because I was so happy for her that she was free.”
The father of three said that his mother told him she was lesbian while working on 4:44, leading him to write Smile the next day. In the song, Mrs. Carter recites a poem she wrote on a plane to LA to visit her son. Jay then decided to record her reciting the poem, which was included in the song.
“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,” Mrs. Carter said on the D’Usse Friday podcast. “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.”
In 2019, the Empire State of Mind star thanked his mother while receiving the Vanguard Award alongside his wife Bey at the GLAAD Media Awards. The Flawless star dedicated the award to her late Uncle Johnny, who she said was the inspiration behind her 2022 hit album Renaissance for which she is currently on tour.
Congratulations, Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Wilshire!
