You probably know him as Fat Joe, but he was born Joseph Cartagena in South Bronx, New York, on August 19, 1970. He left behind a life of crime to find commercial success as a rapper, making waves with the group Terror Squad. With hits like “Lean Back,” “What’s Love,” and “All the Way Up,” he kept us all dancing. Through it all, there’s been one constant in his life: Lorena Rios. According to People magazine, they got married in 1995, but something doesn’t quite add up when you look closer.
Now, let’s take a trip back to December 1989. Nineteen-year-old Fat Joe became a father to a baby boy named Joey with his ex-girlfriend. Joey was born with Down syndrome, and in Joe’s memoir (linked in the description), he shared how his ex was so overwhelmed by the idea of raising a child with special needs that she left Joey on the day he was born. Joe admitted that he couldn’t fully grasp his son’s condition at the time, saying, “I didn’t really want to hear it. It was so traumatic for me.” Later on, Joey was also diagnosed with autism.
Joe was still young and unprepared for single fatherhood, so his parents stepped in to help raise Joey full-time. Even today, Joey lives with Joe’s parents. Joe provides for Joey financially, ensuring he gets all the care and love he needs, but his parents are adamant that Joey stays with them.
Performing as Fat Joe The Gangsta, he released the song “Flow Joe.” To promote it, he and his crew, including Raul “Konde” and his manager Steve, traveled to Miami. In his memoir, Joe isn’t specific about the timing, only saying it was the early ’90s. But since “Flow Joe” came out in 1993 and the trip was to promote the song after its release, it’s clear it happened in 1993.
While in Miami, Steve mentioned that some friends from New York had moved there, and they were all going to meet up. They arrived at a parking lot outside a club, and a car pulled up. A girl stepped out, and in his memoir, Joe wrote that as she stood in front of the headlights, she looked like a superstar on stage. She was wearing blue jeans, and Joe couldn’t stop staring at her “fatty.” He had never seen a Colombian woman before, nor one with such a big “dunk.” He was fantasizing about her when he accidentally blurted out, “Oh my God, she is beautiful!” When you meet the person you love, a switch flips, and you just know, “This is it.”
Nineteen-year-old Lorena introduced herself to 22-year-old Joe. Steve, who considered Lorena his little sister, immediately told Joe to back off. In an episode of “Unsung,” Lorena said she fell in love at first sight, and Steve couldn’t do anything to keep them apart. As they talked, Joe was blown away by everything she said; he thought she was amazing. After their night out, they went back to his hotel, passing by two women in the lobby whom Joe had planned to spend time with before he met Lorena. Lorena thought he was a player, and Joe was thinking, “I wish I could trade them for you right now.” Lorena made it clear from the start that she didn’t like men who talked too much, and if Joe told anyone about anything that happened between them, she would never speak to him again. Joe played it off like he didn’t understand what she meant. Nothing happened that night, but they met up again while he was in Miami and went to the movies. They shared their first kiss, and Lorena told him again that she didn’t like guys who talked too much and if he told anyone, she would never speak to him again. When the date ended, Joe ran back to his friends and bragged about how he “slobbed her down.”
The next day, he tried calling her, but she didn’t pick up. Word had gotten back to Lorena that Joe had been sharing their private business, and she was done with him. When he bumped into her on the streets of Miami, he apologized, telling her she was so beautiful he couldn’t help but brag about her to his friends. After some convincing, she decided to give him another chance.
As his extended trip to Miami was winding down, Joe grew frustrated. He’d spent two weeks with Lorena, but she wasn’t getting intimate with him. He told himself that if things didn’t progress soon, he’d move on. After another night out, he brought her back to his hotel. In his memoir, he wrote that they stayed in the room for three days, passionately destroying it.
Back in New York, Joe tried to play it cool by not calling her for two weeks. When Lorena finally reached him, she confronted him. “Are you trying to play me? You think you’re just going to sleep with me and never call me again? I’m coming to New York, and you better pick me up at the airport,” she said.
In his memoir, Joe revealed that he had just broken up with the mother of his second child, Ryan, which adds another layer of complexity. Joe doesn’t mention Ryan’s birthdate in his memoir, and we think we know why. Our online investigation suggests Ryan was most likely born in 1995. People magazine even published an article confirming that Ryan is six years younger than Joe’s eldest son, Joey. If Joey was born in 1989, that means Ryan was born in 1995.
But Joe met Lorena in Miami in 1993. Did he cheat on Lorena and get another woman pregnant? Was he juggling both women? Were he and Lorena on a break when Ryan was conceived? We may never know the full story. Joe did admit he was wild around the time Ryan was born. His success in the music industry had skyrocketed, and women were throwing themselves at him. He’d come home with pockets full of phone numbers, much to Ryan’s mother’s anger. In his memoir, he wrote, “I was driving girls crazy out in the Bronx and throughout New York.”
Lorena took Joe’s kids under her wing like they were her own, and eventually, she moved in with him. Joe said they were head over heels in love, calling her his soulmate. But things were getting intense with the feds cracking down on Joe’s old crew, with many of his friends getting over 65 years in prison on Rico charges. Even though Joe had left that life behind a few years earlier, he heard rumors that the feds were coming for him next, making him extremely paranoid about losing his freedom.
One time, while Lorena was visiting family in New York, Joe walked in on a scene straight out of a movie: twenty women cutting up substances on a table. He found out later that Lorena’s dad was a big-time dealer in Colombia. Lorena had grown up around that life and wasn’t fazed by it at all. Joe hinted in his memoir that Lorena might have been involved in that lifestyle too.
With the feds closing in on everyone around him, Joe begged Lorena to get out of the game, and she eventually did. But it was too late for her dad, who ended up getting a 10-year sentence and was deported to Colombia after his release. Joe kept hearing rumors that he was next and worried that if he got locked up, Lorena, being as beautiful as she was, would quickly be swept up by someone else. So, he tried to break things off, but Lorena wouldn’t leave him. To show her loyalty, she even got “Joey Crack” tattooed on her. In the end, the feds never came for Joe, and he stayed on the straight and narrow, making money legally. By 2005, he and Lorena were living mainly in Miami, and his son Ryan had moved there to live with them too.
You know how we always mention that Joe likes to skip over certain dates in his memoir? Well, there’s one date he doesn’t mind sharing: the day he and Lorena conceived their daughter in Jamaica. As Lorena’s due date approached, Joe got increasingly worried. A few years earlier, his sister had an epidural that went wrong—it numbed her from the waist up instead of the waist down. Tragically, after a year in a coma, both she and her baby passed away. Joe was terrified that Lorena and their baby might face the same fate. He did his best to be a supportive partner, especially since Lorena was also anxious about having a safe delivery. On May 4, 2006, they welcomed their daughter, Azzy. Things stayed quiet for their family until 2008.
Then, an insider spilled some tea to the YBF website, claiming that Emily Bustamante, known as Fabolous’ on-again-off-again girlfriend, had allegedly been Joe’s side piece for years. This was apparently common knowledge in NYC’s hip-hop circles. The website added, “We wonder what Lorena thinks about all that, especially since there are rumors about her having Benzino as her side dish recently.” By 2012, there were whispers that Lorena was filing for divorce after nearly two decades together. But wait—don’t you have to be married to file for divorce? Hmm.
If you’ve been watching our videos regularly, you probably know that we’re pretty good at digging up information on any celebrity. But when it comes to Joe and Lorena, we can’t say for sure if they’re legally married or not. Joe’s memoir doesn’t mention anything about his proposal, their wedding, or the day they got married, though he does call Lorena his wife. Tattletale’s website says their sources confirmed that Joe and Lorena have been living together for years without officially tying the knot. Apparently, this isn’t that unusual since Joe’s parents have been together for years without getting married either.
Now, about their 2012 breakup: insiders said that Lorena was fed up with Joe constantly cheating on her. If you watched our video on Erica Mena, you might remember that Erica even claimed Joe tried to hook up with her while he was with Lorena. We’ll drop a link to that video in the description box. According to sources, the breakup was sparked by a woman from Dubai, whom Joe allegedly flew out and even took to an NBA game. Pictures of Joe and this woman were reportedly sent to Lorena by someone from the Terror Squad. After the breakup, there were rumors that Lorena was talking to Mona Scott Young about joining “Love and Hip Hop: New York,” but she and Joe eventually patched things up.
Lorena has stuck by Joe’s side through all of his legal troubles. He settled a lawsuit accusing him of underpaying the late Big Pun by at least $2 million and faced several IRS tax liens totaling a million dollars. Joe even served four months in federal prison for tax evasion in 2013. Despite everything, after almost 30 years together, Joe and Lorena have found a way to make their relationship work. We wish them and their family nothing but the best.