Fat Joe Talks Weight Loss, ‘If I Could Be 1000 Pounds I Would’

Fat Joe has been known to boast about a stature that rivaled protégé Big Pun's in girth. So when the husky rapper, who once tipped scales at 400 pounds, debuted his new 265-pound frame in his 'Drop A Body' video earlier this week, fans were understandably concerned.

In a video interview with the New York Daily News, the formerly obese MC addressed his drastic weight loss. He explained that while he has "always loved being fat," a recent string of heart attack-related deaths amongst his group of friends has forced him to pay drop 75 pounds, out of concern for his family.

"I always loved being fat, obviously. I'm Fat Joe. If I could gain 1,000 pounds and be healthy, I would love to do that," Joe explained, without a hint of humor. "The biggest killer of people is food. It kills more people than AIDS or gun violence or war, anything you can name. Eveybody keep catching strokes and heart attacks, and what happened to me was, like seven of my friends passed last year from heart attacks, and they were all 32, 34 years old, 35. And I said, 'I got kids, I can't leave 'em like that.' This world is too hard for me to leave my kids, without me supervising and being there for them."

The Terror Squad leader went on to speak about his overweight fans using his weight loss as inspiration, rather than following Big Pun's lead into morbid obesity.

"If Fat Joe, F-A-T J-O-E, fattest guy you know, could lose some weight, you could lose some too. Just cut back on the carbs and work out. Don't go up in KFC, don't go up in McDonalds, don't go up in Burger King, don't go up in none of that stuff," Joey Crack admonished. "Big Pun died, he was 27, or something. That's a shame, he was a genius, he was a beautiful person. Lotta my friends, too. I hope I can encourage you, you can be like 'Yo, Fat Joe did it, I could do it, too.'"