Wiz Khalifa took to X to announce the death of his dad, Laurence W. Thomaz, writing that “today my father decided not to wake up.”
The rapper continued on Friday: “I will always love him, miss him and be grateful for the things he taught me. He went out like a true yogi, at peace and on his own time. I love you forever Laurence W. Thomaz.”
Thomaz was 63, according to TMZ.
Page Six reached out to a rep for Khalifa for comment.
Khalifa added in a follow-up post: “My father’s passing was sudden but seeing how many people love and respected him makes happy and i know he’s proud that he left a positive impact on this earth. Literally all he ever wanted.”
“The last conversation i had with my dad was him telling me how proud of me he was for the movie i was in and I promised him i would do more. LT Forever,” said the artist, 38.
Sharing his gratitude for his followers, Khalifa, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, noted on X: “Thank you all for your kind words. It really means a lot in this tough time and is helping me feel better.”
Over on Instagram, the hitmaker took to his Instagram Story to post a series of throwback photos with his dad.
One picture featured his father helping him onto a swing. He simply wrote beneath the shot: “Love you big guy.”
Another image showed Khalifa as a child alongside his dad and sibling, Dorien “Lala” Thomaz, who passed away in 2017.
“My boy was smooth,” the Grammy nominee said about his dad, before adding: “You and La La are together again,” with a praying emoji.
Over the years, Khalifa has opened up about his tight bond with his dad, telling NME in 2016 that Thomaz starting his own recording studio in Pittsburgh, Penn., laid the foundation for his future career.
“I was in second grade when I first started rapping,” he reflected. “I grew up in a poor neighbourhood. We didn’t have much, so I listened to the radio all the time. One day my uncle got a piece of paper out and started reading it, and it was a rap! It blew my mind, because I didn’t know we could rap as well, not just the guys on the radio.”
“I lived in that studio. And that’s what turned me into who I am today,” Khalifa, who is a dad of two, elaborated.
The “See You Again” artist shares son Sebastian, 12, with ex-wife Amber Rose. The pair was married from 2013 to 2016.
Khalifa welcomed daughter Kaydence with his girlfriend Aimee Aguilar in July 2024.
While on an episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast in 2024, Khalifa got candid on fatherhood.
“It let me know what I’m really good at and what I’m really here for,” he explained to host Alex Cooper. “I do music and if you would have asked me before I had a kid what my purpose was I would be like ‘To be an entertainer! To be on that stage!’ Really now I just know that’s my gift. And I understand I have to work at it for it to be what it is.”
Khalifa added, “But being a dad that is something that naturally [comes]. There is no book, there is nobody to study to tell you how to be a great dad and my son comes to me regularly and is like, ‘You’re just such a good dad, dad.’ Or, ‘I love you so much.’”
As he put it: “It’s really, really rewarding as a parent.”
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