Juice Wrld’s Mother Gives Statement: ‘Addiction Knows No Boundaries’

By Variety Staff

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – In the first statement from ’s family after the rapper died on Sunday , his mother, Carmella Wallace, spoke of his struggles with addiction, which he addressed in many of his songs.

“We loved Jarad with all of our hearts and cannot believe our time with him has been cut short,” she said to TMZ . “As he often addressed in his music and to his fans, Jarad battled with prescription drug dependency. Addiction knows no boundaries and its impact goes way beyond the person fighting it. Jarad was a son, brother, grandson, friend and so much more to so many people who wanted more than anything to see him defeat addiction.”

“We hope the conversations he started in his music and his legacy will help others win their battles as that is what he wanted more than anything,” she concluded. “We know that Jarad’s legacy of love, joy and emotional honesty will live on.”

The cause of  Juice Wrld ’s death is still unknown after the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office released its initial findings of an autopsy on Monday.

The Medical Examiner’s Office released a statement saying “additional studies are required to establish the cause and manner of death” for the 21-year-old musician, whose real name was Jarad Higgins. Additional studies include cardiac pathology, neuropathology, toxicology and histology, the office said.

Law-enforcement officials were in the process of confiscating guns and drugs from the rapper’s flight at Chicago’s Midway Airport when he suffered convulsions and went into cardiac arrest early Sunday, police told the Chicago Tribune. The rapper was briefly revived but  died at a local hospital .