Rapper J.Cole says he smoked cigarettes at age 6

Years before J. Cole started to smoke up the rap charts, he was a 6-year-old kid pulling on a cigarette.

The 38-year-old ‘No Role Modelz’ rapper, whose real name is Jermaine Cole, opened up about his single mom, Kay, being disappointed to learn of his habit during Tuesday’s episode of the ‘Lead by Example With Bob Myers”.

During the interview, J. Cole revealed that he started smoking cigarettes when he was just six years old.

He said;

“At six years old, I regularly smoked cigarettes in the neighborhood. …I always hung out with the older kids in the neighborhood who [my older brother] hanging around, and they were smoking.

“And I was young and fearless and trying to be cool. So it was like, ‘Oh, you all smoke. Like, let me see this. And, of course, we’re all there kinda [with] young parents, with long leashes.

“For them, it’s funny. They are 10 themselves. So it’s funny for them. Nobody really cares about me. Nobody’s like, ‘Hey! Do not do that. They are 10 years old and smoke cigarettes.

J. Cole said that while he smoked at that age for two or three weeks, it all ended one day when he was at a friend’s house. He said his brother who was confused after asking a friend for a cigarette, came home and told his mother.

Seeing the disappointment on his mother’s face was all he needed to see. He said;

“20 minutes later, my brother returns to the garden where we were. ‘Jermaine!’ He’s like, ‘Mom wants to see you’.

“So I go home on foot, without fear. No worries at all. I saw his face. When she smelled the cigarette on my breath, her face was heartbroken. It was disbelief. It was like, crushed.

“I remember the look on her face and she was like, ‘You smoked.’ It kind of hit her.

J. Cole explained how this moment changed his life, as it made him realize that his actions could hurt someone. He added;

“The reason I think it was a life-changing moment where after that I didn’t need a lot of correction – I became a self-corrector – is because it was the first time I realized that, ‘Oh, my actions can hurt someone else.