Trauma, Love & Becoming A Better Man

Opening Up Like Never Before, The Star Reflects On A Haunting Sexual Assault, Becoming A Father And Why He Still Hopes To Find True Love

- Janine Rubenstein

Seated inside a small Brooklyn café, the artist known as Common (born Lonnie Rashid Lynn) looks up from his hot tea to see a group of teens staring in through the window. He smiles warmly and gives a wave as the group celebrates their celeb spotting before continuing down the block. They’re blissfully unaware that while they were gawking, he was in the middle of rehashing some of his life’s most painful moments. “As stars, we put ourselves out there and act like everything is good, everything is perfect,” he says. “But we all have wounds in our life. I want people to know that we all go through stuff. And we all need support and help.”

The Grammy- and Oscar-winning rapper, actor and activist is well-known for his poignant and poetic way with words. At the 2015 Oscars he and John Legend moved many in the audience to tears during the stirring performance of their civil rights anthem “Glory.” But now the star, 47, is digging deeper. In his newly released memoir Let Love Have the Last Word, Common examines his greatest hardships—the trauma of being molested around age 9, his strained relationship with his adult daughter Omoye, 21, and the repeated heartache of numerous breakups. In revealing so much, Common hopes to show that—with forgiveness and a good amount of therapy—peace and happiness are attainable. “We’ve got to start shifting our perspective,” he says. “Everything can be overcome with love.”

What was your goal with this book? Were you worried at all about being so open and vulnerable?