Hitmaker Jason Derulo has become one of pop’s biggest stars, despite breaking his neck in a terrifying accident during a 2014 tour that could have ended it all. Now the pop music superstar wants to help others get through dark times with his new book, “Sing Your Name Out Loud: 15 Rules for Living Your Dream.”
Derulo spoke to “Extra’s” Melvin Robert about the book and the values he hopes to impart to his young son.
“I was either gonna be paraplegic or even worse. The fact that I made it out of that was crazy in itself,” Jason said about the accident, which left him unable to even shower on his own. “Seven months later, I was back to health and I had written my most successful album, the ‘Talk Dirty’ album.”
Derulo explained that he wanted to write his book to inspire others to follow their dreams despite any obstacles that might come their way.
“I was like, I need to write this book because there’s a lot of dreamers out there that have the same kind of dreams that I had,” Jason said. “I wanted to give some inspiration and just create this handbook because I bumped my head a million times and I failed a million times.”
The “Marry Me” singer, who has sold more than 250 million hit singles, also shared the lessons he hopes to pass on to his 2-year-old son, Jason King.
“Obviously he’s going to be raised a lot different than I was raised because I went to sleep hungry a lot of nights and I didn’t have, like, the nice clothes,” said Jason, who in May revealed he dropped $30,000 on his toddler’s birthday party, which he shared a video montage of on Instagram.
Despite the extravagant party, Jason told Melvin he wants to teach his son the importance of working with a purpose.
“Of course, you want to teach them how to be a man. I want to teach him how to treat a lady. I’m going to teach him how to be kind and how to work for things. And purpose, because I like purpose. It is one of the secrets to happiness.”
Derulo added that becoming a dad has changed him and his own purpose in life.
“The biggest change: Everything is for him now. When you’re kind of coming up, everything is a selfish reason. You’re doing everything for yourself and you’re trying to get yourself to the next level, but now it’s for him, you know, and I hope that I can be, you know, the example that he needs and, you know, set him up for the things that he wants to do next in his life.”