COMING CLEAN: Nivea describes devastating drug addiction and how she almost lost her children

By Cortney Wills

·September 28, 2018

Nivea B. Hamilton aka Nivea has been absent from the spotlight for a while and the singer recently revealed that she battled a devastating drug addiction for years.

Nivea is best-known for hits like “Don’t Mess With My Man” and “Laundromat” and was engaged to Lil Wayne in 2002 and later married Terius Nash, aka The Dream in 2004. She opened up about her history with drugs in an interview on the M+M+M Show podcast.

“I’m a be honest. I did everything late. I didn’t smoke weed until 2010 after I stopped breastfeeding my youngest son. The pill thing I can’t do. I drink though. I had to stop that. Brown liquor — I’m a whiskey girl — has sugar in it and it makes you freakin’ fatter. I had to stop that. But yeah, I like to drink,” she said.

“My experience with cocaine, that wasn’t something I felt public with where people want to party. It didn’t do none of that for me. It was more of a mental thing. I had a different reaction than most people. I wanted to be alone. It was a personal drug. I wanted to write, play Sudoku, it put me in my head.”

According to Nivea, addiction was in her blood thanks to both of her parents.

“I come from an addicted family, both of my parents were on crack. My mom got off and my dad struggled over the years, and recently, over the past year, went to rehab, but that was the last 30 years of my life,” she said. “The struggle is real. I was real caught up with the cocaine situation. It was pretty bad. I pulled myself up out of it though.”

She explained the thought of losing her children is what prompted her to pull herself off of the dangerous path she was on.

“I knew I was going to come out of it somehow. Even though sometimes it got tough and I was like, damn… I talked to Dream about it. I was about to give the kids up, which I think helped me. Because without them, I would have died…I can’t live without all of them. I need them for air.”

Now, Nivea is working on new music and may even be featured on Weezy’s latest album, The Carter V. Several reports have surfaced claiming she is featured on a track from the album alongside Drake.