What that interview reminded me is that rap stars are picked up out of the direst, unimaginable poverty and neglect.
His real name is Jeff. JEFF. He is 24 years old and six feet three inches tall but has the tiniest little feet, size 8.5, like someone had bound them when he was a child. A 26-inch waist. He eats almost nothing. Says he does not like to eat, and goes for days without food. On the third of every month, a doctor shows up at his mansion near Buckhead and injects him with vitamins. All the greens, he says, to keep me healthy. His toenails are immaculately manicured and painted iridescent. They look like tiny soap bubbles. He wears little girls' dresses as shirts sometimes, women's pants. When he likes something, he calls it sexy. He calls a Gucci shirt sexy, he calls men sexy, and women he flirts with. He recently called the 2-year-old son of a woman he was flirting with online sexy. He has six children by four women. He's on-again, off-again with his girlfriend, Jerrika, but at the time we talked he said they're engaged. He is one of 11 children, dropped out of high school, had his first child at 17. He grew up in Section 8 housing in a very poor, violent part of Atlanta. He had nothing, his first manager says, when he began rapping. Like, a few shirts, a pair of shoes. He was shy then. He didn't have the gold front teeth yet; his teeth were rotted, discolored. He covered them with his hand when he talked.
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He is extremely close to his mother, who suffers from an enlarged heart. They call her Big Duck. They call his dad Big Jeff. His mom and dad call each other brother and sister now. His little sister Dora, whom he calls his twin, is almost constantly by his side. They call one of his brothers, phonetically, Oonphoonk. Oonphoonk is in prison on a murder conviction—another of Thug's brothers was murdered outside his house when Thug was a kid.
It came up for me more recently when I was watching the video to trap queen
Here he is after eating a few more square meals