Posted by New Orleans, LA – Lil Wayne will always remember Robert Hoobler a.k.a. “Uncle Bob,” the former New Orleans police officer who saved his life as a kid after he attempted suicide. So much so that he even offered Bob financial support years later.
Hoobler recently told TMZ that he met Wayne in 2019 — 25 years after the incident — when the Young Money rapper was back home for a NOLA radio show appearance. During their meeting, Weezy offered to help Bob financially, telling him “all he has to do is say the word.”
Uncle Bob politely turned down the offer, but it seems as though Lil Wayne is insistent on repaying Bob for coming to his rescue. According to TMZ, there has been a discussion about him joining Weezy’s team in an administrative capacity.
Lil Wayne mentioned Uncle Bob in his 2015 song “London Roads,” in which he suggested that Bob had died. “I remember dyin’ on her room floor/And wakin’ up in some police’s arms/He died recent, so I hope Heaven made more room for him,” he rapped.
Apparently, Wayne was even prepared to pay for Hoobler’s funeral. However, Bob says he got in touch with Weezy to let him know that he was still very much alive.
During a recent sit-down with former NFL player Emmanual Acho, Lil Wayne spoke in detail about his suicide attempt and how Uncle Bob saved his life.
For years, it was believed that Wayne had accidentally shot himself in the chest when he was 12 years old. But he revealed that it was, in fact, a suicide attempt after his mom banned him from rapping for skipping school.
“I was just looking [in the mirror] like, ‘You know what?’ Start thinking I had to get myself mad and I noticed that I didn’t have to — that’s what scared me,” Wayne recalled. “How I knew I had mental health problems was I pulled the trigger.”
Lil Wayne claimed that when police officers responded to his 911 call and arrived at his mom’s apartment, they stepped over his heavily-bleeding body and instead searched the property for drugs and guns.
However, Uncle Bob, a local off-duty cop, arrived on the scene shortly afterward and rushed the young Dwayne Carter to the hospital, saving his life.
“[He] picked me up and just kept telling me some shit like, ‘You not gonna die on me,’” he said. “And so he got me to the hospital … He made sure I was good.”
Lil Wayne Opens Up About Childhood Suicide Attempt: ‘I Knew I Had Mental Health Problems’
Wayne recalled meeting Bob years after the incident. “I met him years later,” he said. “He was like, ‘I don’t want nothing. I just want to say, I’m happy to see that I saved a life that mattered.’”
Lil Wayne also paid tribute to Uncle Bob during his acceptance speech for the I Am Hip Hop award at the 2018 BET Hip Hop Awards.