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Selah Marley is Lauryn Hill and Rohan Marley's eldest daughter who was born on November 12, 1998. After her birth, Lauryn decided not to release a second album, dedicating her entire time to her family.
Selah's childhood was spent in trauma according to what she claimed in an August 10, 2020, Instagram Live session. The 25-year-old opened up about the effects of growing up with an absent father and a mother with anger issues.
Three days later, Lauryn Hill set the record straight and uploaded a lengthy Instagram post, highlighting the various adversities she faced as a single mother trying to raise five children. Her post read in part:
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"Selah has every right to express herself, I encourage it, but she also got the discipline that black children get because we are held to a different standard."
Lauryn Hill also talked about the systematic exploitation and racism she regularly faced in her career. The note ended with an apology to her children for the trauma they had to go through.
What did Selah Marley say about Lauryn Hill?
Selah Marley discussed her emotional trauma as a child in an Instagram Live session in August 2020. She called Lauryn Hill an 'amazing woman,' but claimed that the singer used to get 'very angry' and beat her up. The 25-year-old talked about the scars that Lauryn Hill's disciplining left in her mind.
"She would spank us to no avail. She was just very angry. So, so, so, so, so, so angry. She was literally not easy to talk to and then half the time we didn’t live with her. I lived with my grandparents half the time," Selah explained.
The belt treatment was another trauma trigger for the 25-year-old. She recalled her mother hitting her with a belt and threatening her like a 'slave.' Selah explained that her mother also went through a traumatic period because of the way the media treated her.
The eight-time Grammy winner was raising five children with a man 'who didn't really know her,' as claimed by Selah. According to Selah, her father was so detached that she often Googled what it was like to have a father:
"I came to the conclusion of how much of my life I’ve f***ed up and how much of me is f***ed up simply because my dad just wasn’t around. And there’s just a void where there should be a person. And it’s honestly really hard."
However, she ended the chat by reminding the viewers that she loved her parents, and was merely pointing out her shortcomings.
"I never said I did not love him [Rohan Marley]. I said that their shortcomings created trauma that I now need to consciously and actively heal from," she concluded.
Lauryn Hill addresses daughter’s statement via a lengthy Instagram post
On August 14, 2020, Lauryn Hill posted a lengthy note spanning eight slides in an Instagram gallery to explain herself after Selah's statements. The Fugees rapper elaborated on the hierarchical racism and media exploitation that coerced her to develop trauma patterns of her own. She wrote:
"If I am guilty of anything it is disciplining in anger, not in disciplining,” she wrote in the Instagram post. The toxic venom I ingested for standing on principle, and confronting systemic racism far BEFORE it was the thing to say or do (everything you NOW celebrate everyone for!)–the people who called me CRAZY and have yet to apologize and say ‘oh yeah, we were wrong’, OF COURSE that seeped into my home, it was intended to.”
Hill opened up about the vicious public eye and how she struggled to keep her children away from the 'wolves and sharks' of society. According to her, she took the role of 'master psychologist, provider, protector and warrior' for her kids.
Hill highlighted that protecting her children was her foremost priority, and she tried her best to do that amid the rampant racism she faced. Referring to her children as 'strong-willed and powerful,' the Grammy winner dissected her relationship with her eldest daughter, Selah.
She explained that she and Selah constantly sought therapy for themselves and kept communicating their woes to each other - 'the exploitation, the abandonment, the mistreatment and the muzzling of [their] own gifts and intelligence.'
“Let’s be clear, I do not think that physical discipline is the solve. I was physically disciplined by parents who interpreted the Bible literally and did what their parents did, thinking that it was the best thing for me. I had to find something new, but before I could find that new tool, I used the old tool, and found it ineffective for my children," the rapper wrote.
Lastly, Lauryn Hill publicly apologized to her children for making them go through such trauma. She mentioned that Selah was on a "road to healing and contextualizing her childhood."
“The entire experience was traumatic for ALL of us, we were all traumatized, and I am telling you that traumatizing US was done on purpose with the intent to harm us,” Hill inferred.
Lauryn Hill has six children, five belonging to her and Rohan Marley. They are Zion, Selah, Joshua, John and Sara. She gave birth to Micah Hill in 2011 but soon revealed that he wasn't the son of Rohan Marley
