Rapper Da Brat and her fiancée, beauty mogul Jesseca “BB Judy” Dupart, are expecting their first child together.
“We are EXTENDING the family,” Dupart, 39, captioned a joint Instagram post on Monday.
In the photo, the couple are shown making heart hands over Dupart’s stomach.
Da Brat, 47, whose real name is Shawntae Harris, burst onto the hip-hop scene in the ‘90s. The twice Grammy-nominated rapper is known for her collaborations with artists including Missy Elliott and Mariah Carey.
The rapper came out as gay in 2020, when she made her relationship with Dupart, 39, Instagram official.
“I’ve always felt like being private is the better way to go, because then you don’t have so many people in your business,” she told Variety that year. “I was fine staying quiet, but my partner is a social media mogul — that’s how she became who she is. And when you get with somebody, you have to meet in the middle. So to me, the middle was just letting everybody know: ‘Hey, she’s the one.’”
The hip-hop star added that she kept quiet about her sexuality due to her religious upbringing and industry pressure. She was also afraid of falling out of favor with fans and cited what happened to Ellen DeGeneres when she came out in 1997.
“I mean, you saw what happened to people like Ellen,” Da Brat said. “Remember when she lost her TV show, and all these horrible things were happening? People were totally against it.”
But the response Da Brat received was overwhelmingly positive.
“The reaction made me feel like, ‘Why didn’t I do this s--- years ago?’” she said. “There were some people saying, ‘We knew it.’ Well, good for you! Now I know it, and I’m able to say it. I did this on my own terms.”
In Da Brat’s emotional coming out post, she described Dupart as her “heart’s match.”
“I have never experienced this feeling,” Da Brat wrote at the time. “It’s so overwhelming that often I find myself in a daze hoping to never get pinched to see if it’s real so I can live in this dream forever.”
She and Dupart are set to tie the knot on Feb. 22.
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