Busta Rhymes is opening up about what led him to pursue his drastic weight loss.
The legendary rapper, 51, says that he had trouble breathing while being intimate with his ex during the pandemic, which prompted him to make changes and lose 100 pounds.
“I was having a really difficult time breathing, so I got up and I walked out of the bedroom so she wouldn’t panic seeing me trying to keep myself calm,” he told Men’s Health.
“I was trying to inhale, and it felt like it wasn’t working. I felt like I was having like an asthma attack — but I don’t have asthma,” he continued.
“So I walked out of the bedroom and went into the living room, and I was forcing myself to inhale, to relax. That was scaring me so much that it was a mindf---, because I had to stay calm and make sure she didn’t hear me panic or hear me struggle to breathe. I’m ... naked in the living room, trying to calm myself down.”
He says his partner had some harsh words for him.
“She was like, ‘You gotta lose this weight. This breathing is scaring me. When I met you, you wasn’t like a muscle head, but you was slim, you was cut, you had your s--- right. I need you to get back to who I fell in love with,” he recalled.
Rhymes, who received the lifetime achievement award at the BET Awards in June, also says one of his sons slapped his stomach a day or two later, which further opened his eyes.
“I was like, ‘Man, don’t touch my body. If I reach you to give you a handshake, don’t touch my body or touch my side or my stomach,’” he said. “He was just being funny, but these things never happened when I had a six-pack.”
Rhymes says he was also motivated after it took 45 minutes to get him out of a car after he passed out in 2019 and that he elected to undergo a procedure to treat polyps on his vocal cords after a doctor “looked at my throat and he said I could die in my sleep. That’s when I got surgery and started to get back in shape.”
The rapper also shared his wellness priorities.
“Mind, body and spirit: Make sure that you’re in the healthiest space that you can be in so that you can use your better sense of judgment at all times,” he said.
“Go to the gym, eat good, sleep — get it right because it’s important. Find that balance mentally and spiritually so that you can find that peace of mind and that happiness to be your best self. Not just for you but for the people that you love.”