Rick Ross, Rolling Stone Cover: Rapper Shows Who’s Bawse With Shirtless Photo

There's no mistaking the half-naked man on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Beard, bling, belly, tatts: It's Rick Ross, whose God Forgives, I Don't recently debuted at No. 1. In the accompanying story, the Bawse chats about everything from gay rights to his recent health troubles, displaying the kind of candor one might expect from someone who's willing to appear shirtless on the front of a national magazine.

Ross, a self-styled kingpin character, has taken heat in the past for having once worked as a corrections officer, and in writer Josh Eels' piece, he says that he took the job after a close friend was given a 10-year sentence for drug trafficking.

"Suddenly I'm talking to him over federal phone calls," the rapper says of his incarcerated buddy. "My homey's father was a huge influence on my life, too . . . He was the one who was like, 'Yo, go get a job somewhere, man. Go be a fireman. Or go be a fucking corrections officer. Just go sit down somewhere."

Elsewhere, Ross reveals that he struggled with high school math, blames excessive marijuana use for the seizures he suffered last year and defends Chick-fil-A's right to speak out against gays, even if he thinks "everybody got the right to live their own life the way they want to."

The issue hits stands Aug. 17.

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