Busta Rhymes’ Health Scare During An Intimate Act Led To 100-Pound Weight-Loss Journey

As we get older, our health becomes more paramount, and with most people, an incident has to take place to take action. In the case of Brooklyn, New York-born, Long Island-raised hip-hop recording artist Busta Rhymes, being involved in an intimate act justified his pursuit of weight loss.

In an exclusive interview with Men’s Health magazine, the man born Trevor George Smith Jr. explained what led to his transformation to get back to a healthy weight after gaining so much over the years. After having an “intimate” moment with an ex-girlfriend, his breathing took a hit, and his ex was very concerned.

“One night, I was getting ready to have, make, you know…I was getting ready to have an intimate moment with my ex. I had a breathing issue after the intimate interaction.”

He left the bedroom to get himself out of his then girlfriend’s view because he was panicking and having trouble breathing, and he didn’t want her to witness that. It was what happened next that gave him a reason to get back to the Busta he once was.

“When I came back in the room once I got right, I laid back down next to her, and she said something to me that really f**ked me up. She was like, ‘Yo, this is not who I fell in love with.’ She didn’t know what had happened outside, but she was looking at my body and the weight. She was like, ‘You gotta lose this weight. This breathing is scaring me. When I met you, you wasn’t like a musclehead, but you, you was slim, you was cut, you had your shit right. I need you to get back to who I fell in love with.'”

That was the initial enlightenment.

A day or two later, after coming out of his bedroom, his son slapped the rapper on his stomach while reaching out to give his father a pound. When this transpired, after some words with his son, he told himself, “I gotta fix all of this.”

The third and last sign was when security and his son took about 45 minutes to get him up in the house after he passed out in the car in 2019.

“I was also scared about surgery for the polyps on my vocal cords because my voice is how I feed my family—the voice is the dragon. I ran from the surgery as long as I could, but after that weekend, I saw the doctor, and he looked at my throat, and he said I could die in my sleep. That’s when I got surgery and started to get back in shape.”

Over the next several years, Busta lost 100 pounds and is in better shape today.