From left: Gloria Carter and wife Roxanne Wiltshire. Image: Kevin Mazur/ Getty Images.
In a star-studded affair, Gloria Carter, the mother of Hip Hop icon Jay-Z, married her long-time partner Roxanne Wiltshire. The ceremony was held in Tribeca, New York City over the weekend and was attended by a host of friends and family, including: Hov, wife Beyoncé, daughter Blue Ivy, Kelly Rowland, Tina Knowles-Lawson, Tyler Perry, Robin Roberts and many more.
Mama Carter wore an embroidered white blazer with gray pants, and her now wife Roxanne donned a white and silver sequin gown. The relationship has been mostly private over the years, but the couple had been dating for several years before their union over the weekend.
On his critically acclaimed 2017 album 4:44, the Brooklyn-born rapper shared the story of his mother coming out in one of his most revealing songs, “Smile.”
“Mama had four kids, but she’s a lesbian. Had to pretend so long that she’s a Thespian. Had to hide in the closet, so she medicate. Society shame and the pain was too much to take,” he rapped.
He also expressed his own sense of joy when his mother hared her truth with him.
“Cried tears of joy when you fell in love. Don’t matter to me if it’s a him or her. I just wanna see you smile through all the hate. Marie Antoinette, baby, let ’em eat cake.”
Gloria Carter, who also appeared on the song, said that Jay-Z recorded her over the phone after she first shared with him.
“I was sitting there, and I was telling him one day. I just finally started telling him who I was. Besides your mother, this is the person that I am, you know? This is the life that I lived,” Gloria Carter said on the D’Usse Friday podcast. “So my son started actually, like, tearing [up] because he was like, ‘That had to be a horrible life, ma.’ I was like, ‘My life was never horrible. It was just different.’ So that made him want to do a song about it.”
In 2018, “Smile” was honored with a Special Recognition award at the 29th GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Media Awards in Los Angeles, and Mama Carter accepted the award on her son’s behalf.
“Here I am. I’m loving. I’m respectful. I’m productive, and I’m a human being who has a right to love who I love,” Gloria Carter said in her moving speech. “So everybody—just smile, be free. Thank you and God bless.”