Lil Wayne is grieving the passing of Robert Hoobler, the former New Orleans cop who saved his life following a suicide attempt with a gun at 12 years old. The 65-year-old’s body was found in his Old Jefferson home on Friday (July 22). After Lil Wayne got wind of the news, he took his mourning to Instagram to share his sentiments about the hero of his life.
“Everything happens for a reason,” he captioned the photo of Hoobler standing in front of Wayne’s old house. “I was dying when I met u at this very spot. U refused to let me die. Everything that doesn’t happen, doesn’t happen for a reason. That reason being you and faith. RIP uncle Bob. Aunt Kathie been waiting for u. I’ll love & miss u both and live for us all.”
Hoobler’s grandson Daniel Nelson shared that his grandfather – a retired detective – coped with health complications caused by a car accident. Hoobler’s legs were amputated due to his chronic diabetes.
Lil Wayne’s run-in with Hoobler has been described as “one of the best stories that depicts Hoobler as a person,” according to David Lapene, ex-New Orleans police officer and friend of Hoobler. Since then, Wayne has recounted the events that took place that night in multiple interviews. “I was just looking 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 shared in an interview with ex-NFL player Emmanual Acho in 2021. “How I knew I had mental health problems was I pulled the trigger.”
Wayne claimed that as officers arrived at the bloody scene, multiple officers stepped over his body in search of drugs and weapons. He said Hoobler, who was off-duty at the time, was the one to rush Lil Wayne to the hospital—and Hip-Hop is forever grateful for that.
“[He] picked me up and just kept telling me some sh*t like, ‘You not gonna die on me,’” he recalls Hoobler telling him as he took him to the ER. “And so he got me to the hospital … He made sure I was good.”
Rest in peace, Robert Hoobler—or as Wayne called him, Uncle Bob.
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