RIP Linwood Jones — Lil' Kim's Dad Loses Battle With Alzheimer's
The rapper is mourning his death.
Instagram Lil' Kim is mourning the loss of her father Linwood Jones. The rapper posted a photo on Instagram where she shared with fans that her father had recently passed away. Jones was suffering from dementia since at least 2012 and Kim had been caring for him in recent years.
She also said that the death of her father has brought her loser to fellow rapper Trina. The two had once been friends but they had fallen out years ago. No one quite knew what transpired between them but they were on the outs around the same time that Kim was beefing with Nicki Minaj. But Trina recently lost her mother and the shared experience of grief seems to have brought the two back together.
How did Lil' Kim's dad die? Read on for all the details.
1. Mourning her father's death
On October 31, the hip-hop star took to Instagram to post a photo of herself with rapper Trina and NFL star Bryant McKinnie. In the caption, she announced her father's passing, saying "On this very day I found out my Daddy passed away. I was so distraught and had to put on a brave face and keep working because I had a show that same night. When @trinarockstarr came into my dressing room we instantly bonded. She comforted me and it was exactly what I needed in that moment. It’s as if her Mom and my Dad brought us together and healed our friendship. We both have angels watching over us."
Grief healed their friendship.
2. A troubled relationship
In a 2000 interview with Newsweek, Kim reminisced about the way her father criticized her from the time she was very young. "It was like I could do nothing right," she says. "Everything about me was wrong — my hair, my clothes, just me." That set up a pattern for her future relationships with men.
"All my life men have told me I wasn't pretty enough — even the men I was dating. And I'd be like, 'Well, why are you with me, then?' " She winces. "It's always been men putting me down just like my dad. To this day when someone says I'm cute, I can't see it. I don't see it no matter what anybody says."
3. Taking him in
Despite the dark history behind them, Kim was still ready to be there for her father when his time of need arose. In 2012, she told OK Magazine that he was suffering from dementia. Kim says she didn't even have to think twice about what to do when she learned that: she took her father into her own home to care for him.
“Here’s the thing — we feel and know that he has an early case of Alzheimer’s,” she said ay the time. “The doctors won’t really diagnose him with it, but we know that he does. They say that it seems to be an early case of it — this is what they’re saying. But he has this shaking-jitter condition that is almost the same thing as — don’t get this wrong, because then people will be like ‘oh, her dad has M.S.’ — no, he almost has the same symptoms as a person who has Multiple Sclerosis where they shake — they shake really bad. Yes. So it’s those types of symptoms. It stems from the situation.”
A photo of Kim's father.
4. Caring for him during his illness
Her father needed assistance and Kim made sure she was there to give it to him. “We have to feed him because he can’t make his own food,” she said to OK Magazine in 2012. “He can’t really pour juice. He can get dressed, but we have to help him sometimes. Basically we have to help him do almost everything. He can walk around and stuff like that. And again, it’s early stages.”
“He remembers to do some things, but sometimes he forgets some things. Like one time, he forgot to turn off the stove, and the coffee pot caught on fire," she added. "We had to run and put it out. It was really crazy.”
5. Child of God
When reporters from OK Magazine asked why she was putting aside her hard feelings to be there for her father, Kim cited her own faith as a reason. “Well, I am a child of God,” she said. “I believe in God, and I also believe in the quote ‘honor thy mother and thy father.’ No matter what, I’m always going to be there for my family.”
6. Unlikely source of support
The photo with Trina was a surprise to some fans. WHUR notes that Trina and Lil' Kim haven't been close in recent years, likely because Trina got caught in the middle when Kim was feuding with Nicki Minaj. But the two women are experiencing a similar loss as they each navigate the death of a parent. Supporting one another in this time has let them put the past behind them, it seems.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.