Kai Z. FengIn a new cover story with Latina magazine, Bruno Mars opens up about how his mother’s death has affected his life. He admits he would give up his music career just to have her back.
“My life has changed,” Bruno tells the mag about the years since her death. “She’s more than my music. If I could trade music to have her back, I would. I always hear her say, ‘Keep going and keep doing it.’”
The singer’s mother, Bernadette San Pedro Bayot, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in 2013 at the age of 55.
While his mother’s memory keeps him going, Bruno also says he’s also been influenced by his father’s sense of rhythm and style.
“My whole sense of rhythm is because my dad was teaching me bongos as a kid,” he says of his dad, Pedro Hernandez. “He’s an old-school working musician, so that’s where the pinky rings come from, the patent-leather shoes, the suits, and the pompadour. It all stems from watching my father.”
Bruno, who’s Filipino and Puerto Rican, also comments about the current political climate and President Donald Trump’s views on Latinos.
“I hate that we’re even having a conversation about injustice in America,” he says. “That we are having a conversation about this in 2017; the same conversation that’s been had decades and decades ago.”
He adds of growing up multicultural, “I hope people of color can look at me, and they know that everything they’re going through, I went through. I promise you.”
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