What Happened to Da Brat? Where She Is Now in 2026

If you were anywhere near a radio in the mid-’90s, you knew that voice. Da Brat kicked in the door with “Funkdafied” in 1994, snapping off rhymes with a cool, unbothered swagger that nobody else had — and became the first female solo rapper in history to go platinum. Then came a long silence, a prison sentence, and years of tabloid rumors. So where is Shawntae Harris now? The short version: married, wildly in love, publicly out, and — at 51 — expecting her second child. Here’s the full story.

01Profile

Full name

Shawntae Harris-Dupart (born Shawntae Harris)

Stage name

Da Brat

Born

April 14, 1974 (51 years old)

Birthplace

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Occupation

Rapper, radio and TV personality, entrepreneur

Best known for

"Funkdafied" (1994), "Give It 2 You" (1994)

Family

Wife Jesseca "Judy" Harris-Dupart; son True Legend (b. 2023)

Here’s the thing people forget about Da Brat: before she was reality-TV famous or tabloid famous, she was record-breaking famous. That platinum plaque wasn’t a lucky break — it was the start of a genuinely groundbreaking run.

02The Rise: Funkdafied and the So So Def Machine

Discovered at a rap contest

Da Brat’s origin story is the stuff of hip-hop legend. As a teenager in Chicago, she won a rap contest and got an introduction to Kris Kross — the kid duo behind “Jump” — and their producer, Jermaine Dupri. Dupri signed her to his So So Def label, and in 1994 he built her debut around a laid-back, Chronic-era West Coast groove that felt fresh coming out of an Atlanta-based, Chicago-bred artist.

The first female solo rapper to go platinum

That debut single, “Funkdafied,” was a smash. It topped Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop chart and carried her album of the same name to over a million copies sold — making Da Brat, in 1994, the first female solo rapper ever to be certified platinum. That is not a small footnote. In a genre that had produced plenty of celebrated women, she was the one who crossed the million mark first, and she did it before she was old enough to legally rent a car.

A decade of hits and collaborations

She followed it with “Give It 2 You,” “Ghetto Love,” and the Missy Elliott–assisted “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” and she became a go-to feature artist, appearing alongside Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child, and a long list of others. For most of the late ’90s and early 2000s, if a track needed a sharp, confident sixteen bars, Da Brat’s name came up. She was a fixture — respected by peers, played on radio, and never quite treated like a novelty.

03The Turning Point: Prison and the Quiet Years

Then the momentum stalled, and the reason was a serious one. On Halloween night in 2007, Da Brat was involved in an altercation at a nightclub outside Atlanta. According to court records and mainstream reporting, she struck a woman with a bottle, causing significant injuries. She pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.

• 2007An altercation at a metro-Atlanta club leads to felony aggravated assault charges.
• 2008Da Brat is sentenced to three years in prison, plus probation and community service.
• 2010She is released from prison after serving roughly 21 months.
• 2014A civil jury finds her liable over the 2007 assault, and she is ordered to pay a $6.4 million judgment in damages.
• 2011–2019She rebuilds quietly, guesting on features and joining Atlanta radio, then breaks out on the reality show "The Rap Game" and Fox's "Growing Up Hip Hop: Atlanta."

The prison years could have been the end of the story. Instead they became a hinge. When Da Brat came home, she didn’t try to force a chart comeback. She rebuilt her public life on radio — becoming a beloved co-host on Atlanta’s airwaves — and let a new generation meet her as a personality first. It worked. By the late 2010s she was arguably more famous than she’d been in years, just for entirely different reasons.

04Coming Out and the Love Story

For most of her career, Da Brat kept her private life private. That changed in 2020, when she publicly confirmed her relationship with Jesseca “Judy” Harris-Dupart, a successful entrepreneur and the founder of the Kaleidoscope Hair Products empire. It was the first time Da Brat had openly discussed being in a relationship with a woman, and she was candid about how long she’d guarded that part of herself.

The relationship became one of the more visible love stories in Black entertainment. Da Brat proposed in early 2022, and the couple married in a lavish ceremony that same month. They documented much of it — and their fertility journey — on their reality series and social media, sharing both the joyful moments and the heartbreak, including a publicly discussed miscarriage before their first successful pregnancy.

“I hid my whole life… I just want to be free.” — Da Brat, on publicly coming out in 2020 (as widely reported by outlets including People and Essence)

In 2023, at 49, Da Brat gave birth to the couple’s first child together, a son they named True Legend Harris-Dupart. She had been open for years about wanting to be a mother, and the arrival — after the earlier loss — landed as an emotional milestone for the many fans who’d followed the couple’s story.

05What She Is Doing Now

Radio, TV, and business alongside Judy

These days, Da Brat wears a lot of hats. She’s a longtime radio personality, a reality-TV mainstay, and a business partner to her wife’s beauty and haircare ventures. The couple has effectively become a brand of their own — “Brat and Judy” — with a devoted following that treats their milestones as must-see events. She still records and performs, popping up for features and nostalgia-driven live shows, but her center of gravity has shifted firmly toward family and entrepreneurship.

A second pregnancy at 51

The biggest recent headline is a joyful one. In 2026, Da Brat revealed that she is pregnant again — reportedly around five months along and expecting the couple’s second child, another boy, to join big brother True Legend. She and Judy shared the news publicly, and it quickly rippled across social media, with famous friends and fans celebrating.

At 51, and after a fertility journey she’s never sugarcoated, Da Brat approaching motherhood a second time is a genuine full-circle moment for someone who spent decades keeping her private life locked down. As she and Judy have framed it, the family they’ve built is the achievement they’re proudest of now — platinum plaques included.

“This is the happiest I’ve ever been.” — Da Brat, reflecting on her family life in recent interviews and social posts

Still the “da ONLY 1”

For all the reinvention, Da Brat hasn’t lost the swagger that made her a star. Her music legacy is secure — that “first platinum female solo rapper” line follows her name into every headline — and she seems entirely comfortable being celebrated for the person she is now rather than the hits she made at 20. It’s a rare thing in this business: a former teenage phenom who came through prison, a public coming-out, and a hard road to parenthood, and landed somewhere that actually looks like peace.

06Summary

Da Brat’s story is one of the more complete arcs in ’90s hip-hop — record-breaking success, a serious fall, and a genuinely happy present that has nothing to do with the charts.

The kid who won a Chicago rap contest and rewrote the record books grew up to write a very different kind of story — one about a marriage, a family, and finally living out loud. Whatever comes next, Da Brat has already earned the last line of her own rhyme.