Many were rocked this weekend by the news that rapper Juice WRLD had died at the age of 21. We don’t know much, just that he suffered a seizure at Chicago’s Midway Airport, Narcan was administered and that he was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after. I’ll admit I did not know Juice WRLD, but I did see the outpouring or grief by several artists I do know. One artist who was affected by Juice WRLD’s passing was Lil Nas X, who wrote a deeply personal series of tweets. The tweets began when he learned of Juice WRLD’s death and ended up with him discussing how he grapples with his meteoric rise to fame and everything else that happened in this past year.

oh my god wtf 🙁

— nope (@LilNasX) December 8, 2019

rip juice. so sad how often this is happening lately to young talented rising artists. 🖤

— nope (@LilNasX) December 8, 2019

i like to pretend hate and shit don’t get to me, but subconsciously it eats away at me. feeling like u have the world and knowing it can all go away at any time is scary. with all this being said i want anybody who cared enough to read this to just live in the moment. love u guys

— nope (@LilNasX) December 8, 2019

Lil Nas X sounds raw emotionally in these tweets and that’s to be expected. Lil Nas X has had so much happen over the last year. He wrote a country song, Old Town Road, that was pulled from the charts for obscure and questionable reasoning. Refusing to give up on it, he saved it with a collaboration with Billy Ray Cyrus and went on to have the longest reigning number one song of all time, which earned him a nod of respect from the women he dethroned, Mariah Carey. He traveled outside the country for the first time ever to play Glastonbury. Then he chose that opportunity, at the height of his momentum, to announce to the world he was gay and went on to collect several awards as the first openly gay man to do so in those categories. It has been an absolute roller coaster for this young man who just turned 20 in April.

Even given his extraordinary year, what he said in his tweets are relatable to most of us. I don’t have a fraction of the fame or visibility Lil Nas X has, but I also constantly think about how quickly what I do have can go away. As for the hate Lil Nas X referred to, he’s faced much more than I ever have. He came out while cresting two genres of music that historically have not been accepting of the LGBTQ+ community. Let’s not forget when Kevin Hart and co. pulled this little stunt, diminishing Lil Nas X’s experience by pretending like they don’t know what homophobia is. Plus, he has never shaken the allegations that he made controversial comments on a now defunct Twitter account that many still assume was his. And now, in the final weeks of this huge year, he loses a fellow artist, close in age and success, whom he deeply cared about. That’s a lot of life coming at a young adult.

Following the tweets above, Lil Nas X posted a few lighter tweets, closer to his usual Twitter vibe. But Sunday night, Lil Nas X performed at the Jingle Ball in San Francisco where he covered Juice WRLD’s Lucid Dreams in tribute and one again showed the private Lil Nas X who is clearly still grieving.

rip 🖤🖤🖤 pic.twitter.com/64LVGgn09R

— nope (@LilNasX) December 9, 2019

Photo credit: Twitter and WENN Photos