Lenny Kravitz Rewatches The Jeffersons When He Misses Late Mom Roxie Roker (Exclusive)

Not everyone had a parent who was the star of a hit sitcom, leaving a lasting legacy on screen that everyone can watch over and over again. However, this is the case with Lenny Kravitz, who is a son The Jeffersons actress Roxie Roker and TV producer Sly Kravitz.

“She is still everything to me. I probably feel her more since she left the planet,” Kravitz, 59, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story about his mother, who died of breast cancer in 1995 at age 66.

“I’m very happy that she was on television because when I need to, I’ll tune in The Jeffersons and I watch it, and it’s a lot for me,” he says, finding solace in watching old episodes of the hit CBS sitcom, which starred Helen Willis for 11 seasons.

“I am so grateful that God chose her to be my mother,” he tells himself now, after spending so many years without her. The longtime rocker adds that even now “he still feels it[s] her just as much — she’s just physically not here,” he says, explaining that “spiritually I feel her deeply.”

Roxie Roker and Lenny Kravitz in Los Angeles in 1993. Vinnie Zuffante/getty Lenny Kravitz lets love rule! Rockstar opens up about family and the ‘power’ of black musicians (Exclusive)

Kravitz, who says Roker was “everything” to me, notes that his mother “was the most extraordinary human being I’ve ever known. She was so nonjudgmental.”

The rocker first married Kravitz’s father, Sly, in 1962 before giving birth to the now-legendary musician on May 26, 1964.

Lenny Kravitz on the cover of PEOPLE.

Melody McDaniel

While Kravitz had a turbulent relationship with his father — something he detailed in his 2020 memoir Let love rule — his relationship with his mother never faltered. (His father also disappeared, he died in 2005 at the age of 80.)

A self-proclaimed “mama’s boy,” Kravitz spoke about his close dynamic with his mother, writing in his memoir that “mom was and is my heart.” He added: “Roxie Roker was a gifted actress, mother and empath who knew how to combine all three roles.”

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Lenny Kravitz and his father Sy Kravitz; Lenny Kravitz with mother Roxie Roker. Frank Micelotta/Getty; Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Lenny Kravitz says he got high the first time he listened to Led Zeppelin: ‘I was born again’ (Exclusive)

“She was a woman who never spoke ill of anyone, even if they deserved it,” he said in his memoirs, recalling the telling moment that occurred after her death.

“At her funeral, the late actor Brock Peters said, ‘If Roxie met the devil himself, she would say, ‘What a lovely red suit.’ The whole place burst into laughter because it was my mother. She will find something positive to say or do in any situation,” the musician said.

He also reiterated his latest comments to PEOPLE, saying that in the decades since her death, he thinks about Roker “every day.” He added: “I know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her and all those who came before me.”

Lenny Kravitz for PEOPLE.

Melody McDaniel

For more on the life and loves of Lenny Kravitz, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE magazine, on newsstands everywhere now.

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Source: HIS Education