Fat Joe, 52, opened up about what led to his weight gain and weight loss, in a new honest interview. The rapper admitted to going through a battle with depression after the death of his best friend Big Pun in 2000, and it led to him having thoughts of change. He had a pep talk with himself that encouraged his weight loss and a healthier way of life.
“I went to his funeral and I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge. Like, I seen me,” he told Men’s Health. “And I’m looking at his little daughter. She was the same age as my daughter. I said, ‘You gotta lose weight; otherwise you outta here.'”
He proceeded to lean about good and bad habits and how the body works when it comes to gaining and losing weight with food. “Your body’s just a computer,” he explained. “It reads stuff you eat in different ways.” He also regularly checks his blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels to make sure he’s where he stays healthy.
Joe, who previously confirmed that despite his weight loss he wasn’t changing his stage name, also said that during his depression, he found out his mind “is the most complex Rubik’s Cube you could ever, ever, ever, ever try to figure out” He compared his mental health during that rough period in his life to a scene in The Matrix Resurrections, when Keanu Reeves’ character Neo sits in a bathtub with a rubber duck on his head. “That’s what depression was like to me,” he said. “When you’re fighting yourself, there isn’t a wall high enough that you can build. There isn’t an island you can go to.”
“There isn’t a place you can go to where you get away from it, because you’re fighting your mind,” he continued. “You wake up, and then the minute you think about it, your brain sends you a message to say, ‘We’re not supposed to be happy.’ And then you fall right back into depression.”