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In 2017, on International Women’s Day, T-Boz shared that she had adopted a son she named Chance. This was the first time she’d shared this joyous news on her own terms. Before that, the news came out when T-Boz was in the midst of a $40 million lawsuit with Perri “Pebbles” Reid over the claims they made about her in their 2013 biopic.
In the lawsuit, T-Boz confessed that she spoke to Chilli when she told her the news of welcoming Chance into her family. We reported earlier that the process was not an easy one. Chance’s biological mother had made an agreement to allow T-Boz to adopt one of her children before and then changed her mind the day after the child was born. When she learned she was pregnant with the child who would eventually become T-Boz’s son, she made a promise again. This time she kept it.
All of this happened four years ago. But recently, T-Boz sat down with Dr. Sean on Fox Soul to speak about the experience of raising her son, shielding his birth story from the press and why she doesn’t refer to him as her “adopted son.”
Dr. Sean: You adopted a son. This is after you had sickle cell. 2009 you were diagnosed with a brain tumor. Then you adopt your son. What I want to know is after all the love you could muster, where did the strength come from to bring somebody into your life that you had to take care of while you were still taking care of yourself?
T-Boz: “I always cry when I talk about this because I love my son more than anything. I said my whole life, I was going to have a son and that boy is my son. I had a box of clothes and this is how I meant it. I saved all these clothes for when my son was going to wear them. I’m telling you, this boy looks like us, he acts like me. This is my son. God gave me that boy.
He’s four. I know that’s my son and he’s meant to be my son. I told it because the press wouldn’t leave me alone. They just kept being nosey. It’s like, ‘Well, we didn’t see you pregnant. We know gained some weight but we don’t know about…’ It’s just too much. So, I felt forced to have to say something and I’m such a private person.
And I hate now, on social media people be like, ‘That’s her adopted son.’ Do you say that’s my c-section daughter? Do you say, that’s my vaginal canal son? No, you don’t. That’s my damn son.
I’m so nervous for when he is old enough. I’m not nervous in my household because he knows how much I love him. But it’s the world who talks. That part is irrelevant. I understand it was a story at first or if I’m sitting here. But to say that, like—cuz you don’t know who knows what or how—like, you can’t ruin people’s lives like that. The first time, my child found out that there was no Santa. A teacher, who was at the Christian school she went to, he told her. But that wasn’t his place. So, he got fired but I almost wanted to catch him in the parking lot.
You can’t be doing that.”
Dr. Sean: When you’ve been chosen, can’t nobody mess with you.
T-Boz: That’s why his name is Chance. Because he gave me a chance—all the stuff I was going through in life, he gave me a second chance too.
