Jay-Z (Screenshot courtesy of YouTube)

Jay-Z got candid about his mother coming out to him during an interview on David Letterman’s Netflix show “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.”

Gloria Carter came out to the public on Jay-Z’s track “Smile” from his latest album “4:44.”

“Living in the shadow/Can you imagine what kind of life it is to live?” Carter says in a monolugue. “In the shadows people see you as happy and free/Because that’s what you want them to see/Living two lives, happy, but not free.”

Jay-Z also detailed his mother’s trauma from being closeted rapping, “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.”

The rapper also explained to Letterman that when his mother came out to him he cried tears of joy.

“For her to sit in front of me and tell me ‘I think I love someone’ – I mean, I really cried,” Jay-Z says. “That’s a real story. I cried because I was so happy for her that she was free.”

Jay-Z went on that while he knew his mother was gay she had never discussed her sexuality with him.

“This was the first time we had the conversation,” Jay-Z says. “And the first time I heard her say she loved her partner. Like, ‘I feel like I love somebody.’ She said ‘I feel like.’ She held that little bit back, still. She didn’t say ‘I’m in love,’ she said ‘I feel like I love someone.’ And I just, I cried. I don’t even believe in crying because you’re happy. I don’t even know what that is. What is that?”

Jay-Z’s full interview with Letterman premieres on Netflix on April 6.

Watch below.