Lil Wayne Released from Jail: "Weezy" Gets Support from Bill Clinton
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil Wayne was freed from jail after serving eight months of a yearlong sentence in a gun case, just two days after Bill Clinton voiced his support for "Weezy" in a phone interview.
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The former president wished Lil Wayne the best while speaking to a Pittsburgh radio station Tuesday.
"This guy's smart, and he's got ability, and he's got a new chance now," Clinton told the station. "What I hope will happen is that he has a good life now."
The city's Department of Correction website said Thursday the rapper had been released from the Rikers Island jail complex.
"FREE AT LAST!!!!!!!" the rapper's longtime manager, Cortez Bryant, Tweeted Thursday morning.
His managers have said he planned to head for his home in Miami, where they're planning a welcome-home party Sunday in Miami.
"It should be a lot of beautiful women, just...beautiful scenery. Just treat him like a king, like the royalty that he is and make him feel like we really missed him and welcome him back to the family," Young Money records president Mack Maine told MTV.
The record label boss, who MTV says is also a close personal friend of Lil Wayne, said after a private party, the entourage would move to a strip club called King of Diamonds.
Lil Wayne was expected to get out early because of time off for good behavior,
despite the electronic contraband that landed him in solitary
confinement for the last month of his term: a charger and headphones
for a digital music player were found in his cell, jail officials said.
While he was in solitary confinement, his latest album "I Am Not a Human Being" was released. It hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart last month.
Born Dwayne Carter Jr., the rapper pleaded guilty in October 2009 to attempted weapon possession, admitting he'd had a loaded, semiautomatic .40-caliber gun on his bus after a Manhattan concert.