Key Takeaways
- Fat Joe spoke about his 35-year-old son Joey, who is nonverbal and was diagnosed with Down syndrome and autism upon birth.
- The Bronx native said he was "scared to death" at 19 when doctors told him his newborn son would be "special.”
- The rapper credited his parents for encouraging him to be a parent while contributing to raising Joey.
Being the father of an autistic son has changed Fat Joe’s views about parenting for the better.
In a SiriusXM interview this week alongside Tisha Campbell that aired on Thursday (September 17), the Bronx rapper recalled physicians taking him aside shortly after the birth of his now-35-year-old-son, Joey. Fat Joe, who has two other children, including a daughter with his wife Lorena, welcomed Joey in a previous relationship.
"Yo, I gotta talk to you," the Bronx native remembered a doctor telling him, before informing the rapper that his son was "gonna be special." Joe, who was 19 at the time, said his first child looked "as normal as possible” to him.
Fat Joe described the moment as "devastating," and said he was "scared to death."
Joey, who is nonverbal and was diagnosed with Down syndrome and autism, was raised by the rapper and his parents.
"But thank God I had my parents to hold me down. And my parents was like, 'Nah. We're going to take care of it.' Joey's a king.”
Fat Joe explained that his oldest child developed a close relationship to his paternal grandfather, Ernesto, who passed away last February at 89. Joe’s mother, Marie Cartagena, died in May 2025 at 77.
“Joey used to sleep with my father every day," Joe said. "As a young adult, it wasn't a night he ain't sleep in my father's bed."
Joe went on to say that the process of raising a neurodivergent child is “not easy” and empathized with the "average person who has to deal with autistic kids."
Still, Fat Joe shared a positive outlook on “awareness” being raised about children with special needs, who are able to share space with their neurotypical peers. The rapper concluded by saying that his son is frequently in a “state of happiness” and “euphoria.”
Campbell was on hand because she too has an autistic son, Xen. She has a new memoir about the experience of navigating her son’s diagnosis, called The A Word: A Mother’s Journey Through Autism and Love.
In a 2024 episode of Club Shay Shay, Fat Joe discussed his oldest son’s diagnosis, and claimed that Joey’s mother abandoned him shortly after his birth.
