Fat Joe continues to grieve following the back-to-back deaths of his parents. On Saturday, May 3, the rapper memorialized his late mother, Marie Del Carmen Cartagena, announcing her death just a week before Mother’s Day. His father, Ernesto Delgado, died in February.
In an Instagram carousel, Joey Crack remembered his mother as a “real one” who “didn’t have much but gave us everything.”
“Anyone who knows my Mom knows she had a heart of gold, she refused to move out the projects for many years even though i had money,” he wrote in the caption.
Photos in the carousel included solo images of Marie, along with a group shot of her, Joe and Delgado. The Bronx native said that his mother “loved her community” and was fond of her son’s rap crew, dubbing herself the “Terror Squad Queen.”
“She was sooooooo proud of us meaning everyone in the crew,” he continued. “She asked about Remy [Ma], [DJ] Khaled, Rich, Terrell everyday. I have to give thank’s to the father my God for letting me have her in my life this long, truth is she died of a broken heart 60 years with a man and he recently just died, my Dad wanted her with him.”
Joe concluded by thanking his parents’ families for the “outpouring of love” before extending a final word to his mom.
“Mommy till i see you again you were my world, my heart, my everything. I’ll continue to make you proud,” he wrote.
During an episode of Club Shay Shay last year, Joe said his mother urged him to become the sole caretaker of his son Joey, who was born with autism and Down syndrome.
“So, the doctor tells us, ‘I got bad news to tell you… [your son] has Down syndrome and it’s gonna be a big challenge,'” Joe recalled in the clip above. “I’m there with my mother, my father, and his mother. And [my son’s] mother said, ‘Yo, I can’t do this, I’m going to have to give him up for adoption.’ My mother was like, ‘You crazy, bitch…And so, we raised him.”
