LL Cool J met his future wife, Simone Smith, in 1987, when he was just 19. They had a child soon after, married eight years later in 1995, and have remained that way since. However, their early years as a couple were not without their challenges — particularly, the rapper-actor's many admitted dalliances with groupies, which he told the Chicago Tribune were so frequent he usually never even bothered to remove his hat.
Indeed, this couple has had their rough patches over the years; as the Chicago Tribune noted, LL Cool J felt "freaked out" by being a father at such a young age and left Simone. He returned, but the two would fight, "occasionally trading blows," and he left again, before ultimately returning and settling into a decades-long union. There have, however, been ups and downs along the way. As Simone admitted during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, following their honeymoon, LL Cool J showed his bride the video for his song, "Doin' It," in which he's see making out with multiple women, including one who licks his face. "You know what? I didn't talk to him for two weeks," she said. "... I was mad."
When Simone was asked to share the secret of their relationship's longevity, she replied, "Definitely putting God first — we both definitely come from a spiritual background — and compromise, a lot of compromise. ... Picking your battles, you know, respecting each other."
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