Juice WRLD’s mother says she told rapper him overdosing was her ‘biggest fear’

Carmela Wallace decided to speak about rapper’s cause of death in hope of helping others

Juice WRLD’s mother has opened up about her son’s death for the first time, admitting that the thought of him overdosing had always been her “biggest fear”.

The Chicago-born musician, real name Jarad Anthony Higgins, died in December aged 21, with his death later ruled to have been the result of an accidental Oxycodone overdose.

Speaking for the first time about his “devastating” death, Juice’s mother Carmela Wallace told ABC Chicago that she decided early on that she “was not going to hide the fact that he died from a drug overdose”.

“I didn't want to keep that secret because a lot of people deal with that every day," Wallace said.

Juice’s struggles with drugs had been known to Wallace, who said that she was very close to her son and had advised him to get help for his mental health.

On stage in 2019 (Getty Images for iHeartMedia)

“I said, ‘If you have anxiety, then you need to get medicated properly for it instead of medicating yourself,’” Wallace recalled.

“I talked to him about it. I told him my biggest fear was him overdosing on the stuff. That's why I made the decision [that] I have to talk about it with other people. I can't keep that as a secret."

In July, the late rapper’s album Legends Never Die was released posthumously.

It crashed Spotify on release due to demand from fans, and marked the highest charting posthumous album on the Billboard 200 since Notorious BIG's Life After Death and Tupac’s R U Still Down.

If you or anyone you know is suffering from substance abuse problems, help is available. In the UK, the NHS drug addiction helpline can be reached at 0300 123 6600. In the US, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration can be reached at 1-800-662-HELP.