Nelly Opens Up About Sister’s Death

The rapper talks about their last conversation…

Nelly has spoken publicly for the first time about the day his sister died. His elder sister Jackie Donahue passed away in 2005 after a two-year battle with leukemia.

The rapper opened up on VH1’s Behind The Music and revealed that he was on the road at the time of her death, as he had underestimated the severity of her illness. But he was grateful the pair had a chance to talk just before she passed away. "Jackie gets on the phone and I'm like, 'Hey sis'," Nelly recalled. "I talked to her for about 20, 25 minutes.

"And she gets off the phone and she lays down, and she's gone," he continued. "They said the only thing that kept her alive was that she wanted to talk to me before she left."

The Just A Dream star also described the anger he felt at having lost a sister so young. "I was enraged. We had this door in the back where my room was – I split the door straight down the middle, just punched it." He also punched a TV screen: "I just destroyed everything that was back there and I just broke down."

Before his sister’s death, Nelly became a devoted charity campaigner and set up a Jes Us 4 Jackie, a campaign to educate African Americans on the importance of registering to become a bone marrow donor. He also appeared at several events to raise awareness of the fact that bone marrow transplants can save the lives of leukemia sufferers.

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