Erykah Badu Talks Having “Three Baby Daddies” And Marriage Not Being “Fit” For Her
Erykah Badu has opened up about her experience sharing children with three different men and how she’s avoided being defined by negative labels.
The 51-year-old stopped by The Breakfast Club for an interview, during which she admitted that she didn’t plan on having children by multiple men, but that she hasn’t allowed that circumstance to keep her from living a full life.
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“I think if you’re transparent, people shouldn’t do that,” Badu says of following her lead. “I didn’t know anything… no one would expect to have three baby daddies, who plans that? But, when those things start to happen, you don’t stop living.”
The “Hello” creator also points out that sometimes relationships don’t last due to incompatibility between partners, resulting in lovers moving on to form unions with other people. “Not everybody knows how to be mate,” she laments, but says it’s not due to a lack of effort. “We try, you know but we’re not taught that. That’s something we don’t know how to do. It’s a whole culture built around it, but we don’t even know how to do it.”
The Baduizm creator also points to matters of the heart sometimes overpowering ones judgement in the short term, thus resulting in longterm effects, such as parenthood. “Let’s be transparent, for my sisters out there,” Badu told the show’s cohosts. “We fall in love, you know, love is a chemical thing. We fall in love. Really I think God make us fall in love just long enough to get pregnant so that we can go ahead and procreate.” Badu explains.
The singer also shared her thoughts about marriage, arguing that it’s been promoted as a cultural construct, but isn’t a prerequisite for happiness and isn’t an experience she desires. “It doesn’t fit everybody,” the Dallas native said of being a bride. “It doesn’t fit me.”
Badu has three children by three different men, all of whom happen to be musical artists themselves. Her eldest child, Seven, was fathered by Andre 3000, whom she dated during the mid-late ’90s. Her middle child, Puma Curry, is the daughter of rap legend The D.O.C. and was born in 2004. In 2009, she gave birth to her youngest child, Mars Merkaba Thedford, the daughter of rapper Jay Electronica.
Watch Erykah Badu’s interview with The Breakfast Club below.
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