Maya Rudolph Recalls The Pain Of Losing Her Mom At A Young Age

Long before Maya Rudolph came into the spotlight, she was already associated with fame. As the daughter of the "Lovin' You" singer, Minnie Riperton, and composer Richard Rudolph, she was already in the spotlight even if she didn't know it yet.

Sadly, she was very little when she lost her mother to cancer in 1979.

Because of her mother's popularity, she couldn't deal with the grief in solitude.

"When I was a kid, and people would come up to me or stare at me because of my mom, I didn't like it. I didn't like it. I used to think, 'Oh, they're staring at my hair because it's so big and ugly.' But I didn't realize people were just staring at my mother, like, 'Wow, that's her daughter!'" the actress told E! Online.

She mentioned that for many years, she felt very "lost."

"My mom died when I was 7, so when you don't have a woman—" Rudolph added, her voice dwindling. "First of all, hair products that exist today did not exist when I was a child. The detangling system that I use now on my children is light-years beyond anything that would've ever happened to me growing up in Westwood."

She also described her father as "a pretty adorable Jew" who did not know much about maintaining her natural hair. "So much of my childhood was dealing with my hair and being super embarrassed by it, mainly because I grew up being the only mixed kid."

Because she didn't know how to deal with her grief, she did the only thing she knew how to do, which was act impulsively.

"For many, many years, I couldn't even touch this conversation. Like my mom always was—it was such a painful—" the actress continued, stopping midway into her sentence. "I don't remember if I ever did proper grieving. I know I did, but it came out in ways—like when I was a kid, I went to a new school, and I kicked people. I was like the kicker for a year."

However, she abruptly dealt with the ordeal in her way. During a stint with Sunday Night Live, she encountered Questlove, a talented musician. He informed Rudolph that he possessed some footage of her mother in his collection of music videos.

Not only did Questlove show Rudolph this astounding footage of her mother, but it also came at the right time, as YouTube was building up. This provided the actress with a wide array of her mother's performances and allowed her to watch her mother's talents from a different perspective.

It settled all her previous emotions and forged a new connection with her mother, albeit dead.

When she gave birth to her last child, Rudolph hid the details of her baby from the public. It was a year after that the actress revealed subtle details, including the name of her child.

As reported by TMZ, she and long term partner Paul Thomas named their daughter, Minnie Ida Anderson, in tribute and honor of her mother.

Rudolph and her director partner Thomas share three other children; eight-year-old Pearl, four-year-old Lucille, and three-year-old Jack.

She also revealed in 2014 that her priorities changed after she gave birth to her first and oldest child Pearl. "Before I had children, everything about my life was devoted to Saturday Night Live," Rudolph explained. "It's really difficult to be there for anyone else in your life when you're doing the show because of the hours it demands."

In a weekend episode of SNL, the actress added a subtle tribute in honor of her mother. She did this by recreating the album cover for her mother's "Adventures In Paradise."

She donned an old-fashioned, ornate white dress and wore a crown of white flowers in the fan-favorite photo. She also sat in a reddish-colored velvet armchair. Another flower sagged downwards from her left hand, and her right hand stretched out.

Riperton held a lion on her right side in the original album cover, but there wasn't enough time to do a perfect recreation in the actress's images. Still, fans shared the pictures and lauded the subtle tribute.

Nine years ago, Rudolph recreated the album cover of Riperton's "Perfect Angel." This showed her wearing denim overalls and holding a melting ice cream cone.

The only difference between the original and the actress' recreation was wearing a bra under the overalls.

Her mother, Riperton, will forever remain a hero to many. Her talents and struggles were spread out in a 2009 episode of "Unsung," which included Rudolph and her family's interviews. It is available to stream via TV One or on Philo TV.