Jarad Anthony Higgins (2 December 1998-8 December 2019), known professionally as Juice Wrld, was an American rapper from Chicago. On 8 December 2019, he died of an opioid overdose on his private plane after swallowing several Percoset pills in an attempt to hide his drug stash as police searched his plane for guns and drugs.
Biography[]
Jarad Anthony Higgins was born in Chicago, Illinois on 2 December 1998, and he was raised in Homewood alongside an older brother by a single mother who was devoutly religious and conservative. He learned how to play piano at the age of four and trumpet, guitar, and drums during high school. Higgins became a heavy drug user during his childhood and teens, and he began drinking lean in sixth grade and began abusing pills in 2013, inspired by the rapper Future.
In 2015, during high school, he began making music under the name JuicetheKidd and released his first track on SoundCloud. Changing his stage name to Juice Wrld to represent taking over the world, officially released the song Lucid Dreams as a single in May 2018. Juice Wrld released two successful emo rap albums, Goodbye and Good Riddance and Death Race For Love. and was nominated twice for the MTV Video Music Awards and BET Hip-Hop Awards, respectively. He eventually won an award as "Top New Artist" at the Billboard Music Awards.
On 8 December 2019, while flying from Chicago to Los Angeles, the pilot of his private jet informed law enforcement that he was carrying drugs and guns on the plane. As the police searched his luggage on board the plane, Juice Wrld swallowed multiple Percocet pills to hide them, and he proceeded to have a fatal seizure and die of an opium overdose at the age of 21. After searching the private jet, three licensed handguns and 70 lbs of marijuana were found on the plane. Dozens of musical artists and producers across hip-hop such as Ski Mask Tha Slump God, Alicia Keys, and Metro Boomin paid tributes to Juice Wrld on their social media.