American rapper J Cole has to be the most reserved celebrity alive because he had two sons and no one knew about it. This comes after his secret wedding to longtime partner Melissa Heholt and the lowkey birth of their first child.
The 35-year-old rapper revealed the birth of his second child in an essay about his passion for basketball and rap for The Players’ Tribune titled: The Audacity.
“I’ve been blessed with two sons,” J Cole wrote. “I learned the delicate art of balance between parenthood and career; had the pleasure of working with a ton of talented artists as a featured rapper.”
“I spent 10 magical days recording a Dreamville album in Atlanta and put a lot of time and energy into sharpening my sword and growing as an artist,” the Middle Child rapper wrote.
In the candid essay, the father-of-two recalled first learning he would be becoming a father in 2016; writing: “A couple of weeks prior I learned that I would become a father. It wasn’t a surprise. I had been taking steps to change my life for the past couple of years, and I felt ready.”
The German-born rapper, whose real name is Jermaine Holt, married Heholt in 2015.
In 2019, Cole opened up about fatherhood in an interview with GQ, during which he was asked whether being a father had changed him.
“For a while, I felt a little weird about it,” he told the magazine. “Like, nah. I felt: ‘Did I miss something?’ ‘Cause I didn’t feel the change that people talk about. And then I figured out what it was.
“I changed my life in order to get ready to have a family and to have a son. I literally changed my life, where I was living, the things that I was doing. So because of that, when my son came, I was ready. I already made room.”