Nivea Says Lil Wayne Convinced Her To Quit Music, Opens Up About Cocaine Addiction

Singer Nivea is opening up about her life and music career like never before. While fans can now see her trying to make a musical comeback on the series BET Presents: The Encore, she sat down with fellow singer Kandi Burruss to detail exactly what has happened to her the last two decades.

In 2001 after the release of her debut album and  hits like “Don’t Mess with My Man” and “Danger” featuring Mystikal, things came to a complete standstill. According to Nivea it had a lot to do with her relationship with rap star Lil Wayne.

If you didn’t know, they were together in 2002 and have one child together. Nivea told Burruss things went from 0 to 100 quickly after they met and Wayne even persuaded her to quit music.

“He said, ‘come be with me. I got you.’ I’m just sitting there, like, being a housewife,” she recalled. “All of a sudden — this is kind of funny — he was like, ‘I ain’t never stay in an apartment before. Let’s get an apartment.’ So we move out the house and get an apartment but I never realized he did that to move Toya back in the house.”

She says she later found out he and Toya Johnson (the mother of his daughter Reginae) tied the knot and she was crushed. Nivea says Wayne did continue to financially help her, but it wasn’t enough because she contemplated becoming a stripper.

In 2004 she began a relationship with producer Terius “The-Dream” Nash and the two got married. The following year she released her second album Complicated primarily produced by Nash. The couple then began having children which she says stalled her career once again. She told Burruss that’s when she hit a dark place — going from chain smoking and drinking to doing cocaine.

“I was tired of being a mom only. I was tired of doing so much for my family. I was just depleted and I felt like I was of no value to me or nobody.”

The 39-year-old mother of four says she finally went to rehab to kick her addiction.

“I’m so grateful I’m delivered. I remember so many times, scraping through my damn carpet to find crumbs. It was terrible. It was so bad,” she said as tears started to fall.

“I never thought I would get over it. I never thought I would come out of it. I’m so grateful to God. I thought it was going to consume me and I was going to lose my babies. That’s why I don’t mind talking about it because I did that sh-t man. I thank you, Lord. I thank you, Lord…I’m so proud of myself. When I tell you, I didn’t think I was going to overcome. It had me.”