Lil Wayne Talks About His Seizures & Dropping Out Of School On ‘Katie’
The last time that Katie Couric publicly spoke to Lil Wayne was 4 years ago for a televised Grammy special, and since then, he has suffered multiple seizures in 2013. Katie asked him what caused his seizures and what can stop them from happening again.
“Dehydration, working too much and no sleep,” he replied. “Im sort of epileptic, so we had to go back in history to my past and see why this happened. My mom told me that when I was younger, I fainted on the playground. We didn’t know it was a seizure then. One of my cousins suffers from seizures too and died from them.”
He also touched on his “sizzurp” period — drinking cough syrup with codeine and soda mixed together. “I was taking pain pills with codeine as well [after the first seizures]. The lack of drinking and having another seizure was a reaction of not drinking anymore. The doctor said ‘We can’t tell you what to do, but we suggest that your mom tells you to stop.’ So I did.”
The New Orleans-born rapper’s mom kept him in line, saying, “She always kept a straight head on my shoulders.” Even though he dropped out of school as an honors studen at 14-years-old, he says “I have no regrets about not finishing high school. It was my mom’s idea for me to quit school.” Lil Wayne explained that his mother saw him putting a gun in his backpack to have for safety reasons at school and after that said he didn’t have to go to school anymore and would just get a GED instead.
Lil Wayne Talks About Jail & Retiring To Katie Couric
In 2010, he also served 8 months of 1 year sentence for a gun possession charge. Katie asked what prison was like, and he responded with gratitude for his supporters. “Thank you to people around me, my family, friends and fans. They made it a walk in the park.”
Katie asked if the other inmates were excited that he was with them in jail, and the rapper deadpanned, “Uh…it’s jail.”
When Lil Wayne goes back to New Orleans, and sees troubled kids, he said he wants them to turn to skateboards instead of guns. “I need to skateboard. It’s addictive and I’ll never stop doing it, even with broken clavicles and stitches to show.” Katie even presented him with his own custom Katie skateboard with the show’s logo on it — aww! Looks like he’ll never forget this interview now.
When asked about retiring, he said like he has before, “I know I’ll be able to retire at 35, because I am so ready to retire now.”
With Lil Wayne almost at his 31st birthday on Sept. 27, we might just have 4 years left of him coming out with new albums!
What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers? Do you think that Lil Wayne will really retire at 35? With all of his life experiences, do you agree with his thinking? Sound off with comments!
WATCH: Lil Wayne Talks Retirement on ‘Katie’
— Ivy Jacobson
More Lil Wayne News:
- Lil Wayne Pushes Back Release Date Of ‘Dedication 5′ Mixtape
- Lil Wayne Reveals He Has Epilepsy: ‘I Could Have Died’ From Seizures
- Lil Wayne Was Scared By Life Threatening Seizures: He’s Changed