Ray J has given a grim update regarding his health, claiming he has just ‘months to live.’
Videos from a recent Instagram Live have resurfaced in which the Mississippi born rapper explains that he doesn’t have long left to live.
Almost a month ago, a source close to the R&B singer revealed to TMZ that Ray J had been hospitalized and was seriously ill.
In 2021, Ray J was hospitalized with severe pneumonia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, there’s been more bad news for the star.
Fame came early for Ray J
Moving with his family to Los Angeles from McComb, Mississippi at the age of eight in 1989, Ray J, real name William Ray Norwood Jr. would find fame from an early age, starring in television commercials.
He then went onto play the role of L.J. Beckly in The Sinbad Show between 1993-1994.
Ray J’s biggest TV role, however, would come alongside his Grammy award winning sister, Brandy, in the sitcom Moesha, where he would play Dorian ‘D-Money’ Long in the show’s fifth and sixth seasons.
The 49-year-old began a recording career in the late 1990’s, releasing his debut album ‘Everything You Want’ in 1997.
The record did not fare well commercially or critically, selling under 100,000 copies despite a Brandy feature and failing to crack the Billboard top 200.
Ray J’s follow up album, 2001’s ‘This Ain’t a Game’ fared far better, with The Neptunes and DJ Clue jumping on production duties.
The album reached 21 on the Billboard 200 and brought with it the Lil’ Kim collaboration ‘Wait a Minute’, which gave Ray J his first top 40 single.
While Ray J’s recording career never hit the stratospheric heights of his sister Brandy’s, he still managed to keep himself in the limelight. Although not necessarily for the right reasons.
Kim Kardashian, superstar
In 2003, Ray J was dating a relatively unknown personal stylist by the name of Kim Kardashian, who had worked with Brandy.
That year, the pair vacationed in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for Kardashian’s 23rd birthday. Ray J recorded much of the trip on a camcorder, including videos of the pair engaging in s**ual intercourse.
Four years later, with Kardashian’s profile then in its ascendency, shortly before the debut season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, a s** tape was released by Vivid Entertainment entitled ‘Kim Kardashian, Superstar.’
The tape featured the footage Ray J filmed on the couple’s Mexican vacation. Kardashian sued Vivid and settled for a reported $5 million, allowing Vivid to distribute the tape, which went onto make $1.5 million in its first six weeks of circulation following the settlement.
While Kardashian and the rest of her family would go onto supernova into a global powerhouse brand worth billions, influencing reality TV and social media culture for the best part of two decades, Ray J’s fortunes took a turn for the worse.
A downward spiral
Ray J’s recording career had peaked with ‘This Ain’t a Game,’ despite his attempts to revive his relevancy with the 2013 single ‘I Hit It First’, which featured a pixelated Kardashian as the cover art and references the pair’s relationship throughout.
Appearing on multiple reality shows, including ‘Brandy & Ray J: A Family business’ and the 2017 season of Celebrity Big Brother UK, Ray J’s personal life saw him dealing with depression, following the death of ‘close friend’ Whitney Houston in 2012.
In addition to his personal problems around Houston’s death, Ray J also faced serious legal issues stemming from a violent confrontation with fellow rapper Fabolous at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas in 2011 and a complaint of s**ual harrassment from a woman at the bar of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, in 2014.
In November of last year, the rapper was arrested and booked in a Los Angeles jail after allegedly making threats towards his estranged wife, Princess Love, in his home.
The argument between the pair was caught on livestream and allegedly saw Ray J pull a gun on his wife.
Life threatening health issues
Having been hospitalized with pneumonia in 2021 and again in January of this year, Ray J’s health has been a source of serious concern for some time.
His hospital stay last month also involved heart issues, for which he received X-rays and an echocardiogram.
Following his most recent hospital stint with pneumonia, Ray J posted online: “I want to thank everybody for praying for me. I was in a hospital. My heart’s only beating like 25 percent, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, everything will be all right.”
In videos circulating this past week, the ‘One Wish’ star referenced his long running issues with alcohol and adderall and how those addictions have drastically shortened his life.
Ray J revealed that his excessive consumption of four to five bottles of alcohol a day on top of 10 doses of Adderall has ‘curved his time,’ Rolling Stone reports.
How long does Ray J have left to live?
In the recently circulated social media videos, Ray J explains that he will likely not be alive past next year, while acknowledging his sister, Brandy, for covering all his hospital bills for the remainder of 2026.
In the Instagram Live video, Ray J claims to be in his ‘last days’ before saying: “2027, it’s definitely a wrap for me. That’s what the doctor said,” per TMZ.
The former Moesha and Sinbad star thanked everybody for their well wishes and support during his January hospital stay, saying: “I want to thank everybody for praying for me. I was in a hospital. My heart’s only beating like 25 percent, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, everything will be all right.”
Ray J states in the clips that he thought, “I can handle all the alcohol, I can handle all the Adderall, the drugs, I can handle everything – but I couldn’t. It curved my time. I f***ed my s*** up real bad.”
Elsewhere in the videos that are currently circulating, Ray J revealed he is setting off for Haiti to try and find a cure to extend his time on earth.
“I think I’m going to Haiti because they got the cure,” he said. “So I’m going to Haiti in like two weeks, I’m gonna stream it, I’m gonna do everything. But I fucked up.”
Despite the violent alleged altercation with Princess Love in November, 2025, Ray J had nothing but positive messages to share about the mother of his two children, daughter Melody Love and son Epik Ray.
“But I love my baby mama more than anything, anything. She don’t know how drastic the time is that I got, but she is life. If I could drive over to where my baby mama is with my kids right now and just spend time with them for the next two or three months, I would do that. But I got a criminal protective order where I can’t see them.”
Ray J has been on a restraining order since December, which prevents him from contacting his estranged wife.
