DMX’s ex-wife shares his final words before death

"He was never afraid of passing on," Tashera Simmons said of former love DMX. "And I used to be aggravated with that."

May 18, 2021

When rapper-actor DMX died early last month after suffering a heart attack a week prior, he left in his wake a legacy of gritty rhymes, memorable performances, scores of friends and surviving kin who miss him terribly.

His former wife, Tashera Simmons, with whom the emcee had three sons and a daughter — Xavier, 28, Tacoma, 21, Sean, 18, and Praise, 16 — described their mourning to a recent People magazine podcast.

Rapper DMX and former wife Tashera Simmons — This 2001 photo shows rapper-actor Earl “DMX” Simmons (left) with his then-wife, Tashera (right), and their children attending the premiere of “Exit Wounds” in New York City. (Photo by George De Sota/Newsmakers)

“I am torn,” Simmons told Janine Rubenstein. “Our children are suffering and trying to get to over that ‘not enough time with their dad’ thing; it’s a tough time.”

“At the same time,” she adds, “I used to think that this was insensitive to say, but I do believe he is in a better place, just because of the words he left me with. He was never afraid of passing on. And I used to be aggravated with that, but now I understand.”

The first of a special two-part episode of TV One’s always-revealing Uncensored that aired Sunday night featured an interview with the “Ruff Ryders Anthem” rhymer conducted just three weeks before his unexpected passing at age 50. The second half airs this weekend.

“I didn’t know that it was filmed. When they called me, I didn’t realize that this was the last interview that he’d done.” said Simmons, also 50. “And the things that he talked about in it were so powerful to them, stories that he spoke about of myself and him that I didn’t even remember, really, until … they literally had to replay it.”

The rapper-actor globally-livestreamed public memorial at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center welcomed prominent hip-hop talents like rappers Nas, Eve and Kanye West, producer Swizz Beats and the newest love in DMX’s life, his fiancee, Desiree Lindstrom.

DMX, whose real name was Earl Simmons, was wed to his first bride from 1999 to 2014, and they met as children — at only 11 years old.

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