Uptown: Should There be Honor Among Adulterers?

I have trepidations writing about Wyclef Jean’s latest allegations about his back in the day affair with Lauryn Hill. In his recently released memoir, Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story he’s re-beating the drum about his one-time relationship with Hill, which took place while he was married to his still-wife Claudette. This time he’s raising the stakes, alleging that Lauryn lied to him about being the father of her first child, Zion. According to his new book, he spent nine months believing the kid was his—and though married, he was happy about. It wasn’t until the baby was born that he learned Rohan Marley was the actual father.

Instead of doing the happy dance that he had not fathered a child outside of his marriage. He was pissed. “I couldn’t forgive that,” Jean writes of Lauryn’s alleged duplicity. He credits her deception as the real reason behind the break up of The Fugees.

Here’s where my trepidation comes in—I have an admitted soft spot for Lauryn Hill. The ‘Miseducation’ album and even the ‘Unplugged’ disc had hugely positive effects on my life. I accepted a while ago—okay, really like a year because I was still holding on longer than I should have—that Lauryn is fallible and human and a bundle of contradictions like everyone else. I expected a lot from her, that “lot” being that she always and forever and at all times live up to the empowerment and self-awareness in her music. I put her on a pedestal. I own that. It’s my bad.

And yet, it stings just the same to think that the woman that had such a huge impact on my positive sense of self was, if ‘Clef’s allegations are to be believed, sexing two married men without condoms at the same damn time. She was young, we all make mistakes, who am I to judge? Those are all the things I want to say to avoid saying about one of my youthful heroes, “damn, girl, you was acting like a Maury guest!” And I don’t want to say that, especially now, since Lauryn is going through it, facing jail time for tax evasion and with her mental health in question as her judge suggested an evaluation. Kicking celebrities seems to be par for the course of coverage, but it just feels especially wrong to do it when they’re down.

But you know who isn’t down? Wyclef. And I have no problem wondering real loud, “Dude, WTF?!” when it comes to his revelations.

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