Mario Mourns His Mother's Death in Touching Instagram Post

Mario is mourning the loss of his beloved mother.

In a touching Instagram post, the singer shared that Shawntia Hardaway had passed away. “Your soul lives forever beside mine,” he captioned the photo. “We love you Shawntia Hardaway, I love you eternally.”

The 30-year-old’s tumultuous relationship with his mother has never been a secret as Hardaway struggled with heroin addiction since he was a child. Their relationship was shared with the world in I Won’t Love You To Death: The Story of Mario and His Mom for MTV.

“At the time that I did that, I had just moved from Jersey back to Baltimore and I was staying with my mom to help her out,” he told CocoFab about the show. 

“There were some discussions about how personal or how raw it would be, and at the time I didn’t know much about reality shows, so I just thought ‘real is real’ and ‘let’s just keep it 100.’ We decided to do it and they wanted to turn it into a longer reality show but I was fine with the one time thing and I wanted it to help my fans and inspire people around the world who were struggling with addiction. I wanted to show young adults that they could overcome.”

In the following years after the reality show, there was a dropped assault charge and reconciliation. In 2013 Mario spoke to ESSENCE about his work with DrugFree.org. 

“I forgive her. I can’t say there aren’t times where I think about the past and what we’ve been through, the neglect and the times that she wasn’t there, but anybody who knows about growth understands that you have to look towards the future.”

No word on the cause of Hardaway’s death, but we can only hope her relationship with her son was in a good place. 

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[MUSIC] You should let me love you Let me be the one to give you everything you want and need Baby good love and protection Make me your selection Show you the way love's supposed. [MUSIC] Everywhere you go they stop and stare cuz you're bad and it shows from your head to your toes, out of control, baby you know. Never worry bout what I do I'd be coming home back to you every night doin' you right. You're the type of woman deserves good thangs. Fist full of diamonds, and full of, ladies, you know that you a star, I just wanna show you you are. You should let me love you, let me be the one to give you everything you want, any. Baby, good love and protection, make me your, show you the way love supposed [MUSIC] Baby you should let me love you. Let me be the one to give, I said everything you need, yeah. Protection, make me your selection. Show you the way love supposed [MUSIC] Baby you should let me love you, love you, love you. Love you baby. That good love and protection baby. Make me your selection. Love's supposed to be. Baby you should let me love you. [MUSIC] That's all you need, pal. [BLANK_AUDIO]