Personal life
In her teens, Jones dated Shawn Powell. The pair met at the Empire Roller Skating rink in Brooklyn. After a couple of months of seeing each other, Powell was arrested for robbery and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. Jones and Powell continued their relationship, with Jones visiting frequently. They kept in touch by writing letters. The couple became engaged while Powell was incarcerated.
During this time, Jones met Christopher Wallace (The Notorious B.I.G.). She focused on starting her rap career and called off the engagement with Powell. In 1996, during the recording of her debut album, Jones became pregnant with Wallace's child. She did not make it public until 1999 during an interview with The Source. Jones decided to terminate the pregnancy. "I already knew the kind of relationship that Biggie and I had, and I knew that [having a child] was something that couldn't take place..“.
Wallace called Jones three days before his death and told her he loved her. In a 2010 interview with Ed Lover on Power 105, Jones revealed that Wallace assaulted her and she described an incident where he choked her to unconsciousness. In 2017, Jones admitted her relationship with Wallace was "very violent" after Jermaine Dupri claimed that he witnessed Wallace pull a pistol out on Jones.
On July 23, 1996, Jones was arrested for possession of marijuana after police raided Wallace's Teaneck, New Jersey home. Police smelled marijuana inside the home when they went to ask for someone to move an illegally parked car. Jones denied she was smoking, claiming she was "upstairs all day sleeping“. On March 17, 1999, Teaneck police issued an arrest warrant after Jones failed to turn up for court dates stemming from the arrest.
The warrant was not a top priority for the police, and was not made public until September 2003, after a story was published online by The Smoking Gun. Jones was later removed from Teaneck's wanted list in October 2003, after $350 in bail was posted on her behalf. Jones' attorney told reporters that she did not appear in court because she believed the case had been resolved.
In 2002, Jones started dating Damion "World" Hardy. The couple split in 2003, and she stated she was a victim of physical abuse leading to multiple nose jobs as a result of being punched.
On June 20, 2003, Jones had $250,000 worth of jewelry stolen while catching a flight at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport after a bag, which she intended to carry on, was mixed up with eight other pieces of her luggage. The missing jewelry was recovered 10 days later, found wrapped up in a rag in a locker room for airline employees by a United Airlines worker.
In 2004, Jones dated record producer Scott Storch, whom she met when he offered her a ride to her hotel. The couple split after two months. In 2013, Storch revealed that he would have married Jones if the relationship had worked out. In 2007, Jones and Ray J briefly dated.
On March 17, 2005, Lil' Kim was convicted of three counts of conspiracy and one count of perjury for lying to a federal grand jury about her and her friends' involvement in a 2001 shooting outside the Hot 97 studios in Manhattan. During the trial of her co-manager, Damion "D-Roc" Butler, and her bodyguard, Suif "Gutta" Jackson, a former member of the hip-hop group Junior M.A.F.I.A., she testified before a grand jury that she did not know they were at the scene. However, video footage from a security camera placed all three at the scene, exiting the building.
Butler and Jackson pleaded guilty to gun charges. Jackson was sentenced to twelve years in federal prison as part of plea bargain in which he admitted to firing at least twenty rounds during the incident. The length of the sentence was said to have been influenced by his previous gun-related convictions.
In July 2005, Lil' Kim was sentenced to one year in prison, thirty days' home detention upon release from custody, and three years of probation. She served the entirety of her sentence at the Federal Detention Center, Philadelphia in Center City, Philadelphia. She was released on July 3, 2006, after serving approximately 12 months. Her Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) supervision ended on August 2, 2006.
On June 9, 2014, Jones gave birth to a daughter named Royal Reign. Royal has started modeling, walking the catwalk in the New York Fashion Week Show in 2023 as part of the 13th Annual Rookie USA Fashion Show.
Lil' Kim was in a relationship with Royal's father, Jeremy Neil, who goes by the rap name Mr. Papers from 2012 to 2014, and then again from 2020 through at least part of 2021. He has called her his "wife" before although they have never been legally married. Their initial breakup was somewhat contentious, with Lil' Kim claiming that he was a domestic abuser and Mr. Papers alternatively dissing her and performing somber freestyle raps lamenting the circumstances and lack of access to Royal. They have not mentioned being a couple on social media since 2021 and Mr. Papers was referred to as Lil' Kim's ex again in news reports that were released in 2022, but they never formally broke up with each other publicly.
According to an interview released in April 2024, Lil' Kim was dating Tayy Brown, a rapper who is signed to her record label. They had a very public break up and are no longer seeing or working with each other.
Jones identifies as a Christian.
