Look at him now.
Busta Rhymes revealed that his 100-pound weight loss in 2020 was prompted by him having a post-sex “asthma attack”-like experience.
“One night I was getting ready to have, make, you know … I was getting ready to have an intimate moment with my ex,” he recalled in a recent interview with Men’s Health.
“I had a breathing issue after the intimate interaction.”
Rhymes — born Trevor George Smith Jr. — said that he was “having a really difficult time breathing” so he “got up and walked out of the bedroom” so his ex “wouldn’t panic seeing me trying to keep myself calm.”
“I was trying to inhale, and it felt like it wasn’t working,” he added. “I felt like I was having like, an asthma attack — but I don’t have asthma.
“So I walked out of the bedroom and went into the living room, and I was forcing myself to inhale, to relax.”
After the “Touch It” rapper, 51, walked back into the bedroom, he said his ex said something to him that “really f–ked” him up.
“She was like, ‘Yo, this is not who I fell in love with,'” he recalled. “She didn’t know what had happened outside, but she was looking at my body and the weight. She was like, ‘You gotta lose this weight. This breathing is scaring me.'”
That moment prompted Rhymes, who weighed about 340 pounds in 2019, to change his health for the better.
The “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See” emcee began gaining weight after he lost his father, Trevor Smith, in 2014.
“I drowned myself in work,” he told the magazine. “I just kept drinking, smoking, eating bad — the whole nasty — and recording a bunch of songs just to escape the pain.”
After his breathing troubles, which were caused by polyps on his vocal cords, the dad of six got in the gym and hanged his eating habits.
In October 2020, celebrity trainer Victor Muñoz told TMZ that he crafted a full-body workout to strengthen the rapper’s chest and trim down his belly fat.
Rhymes also began eating leaner meats such as chicken, salmon and bison and dramatically limited his alcohol intake.
The “What’s It Gonna Be?!” rapper is now preparing to go on tour with 50 Cent, telling Men’s Health that he works out twice a day because he doesn’t “want to be [the] weak link” on stage.
