What happened to Jason Lee’s brother Rodney Townsend? Podcaster’s family tragedy explored amid Tiffany Haddish baby rumors

Jason Lee's personal life has been at the center of attention in the days since Tiffany Haddish announced that she welcomed a baby with him.

The comedic icon, 45, took to Instagram on August 3 to share a joint post with Lee, 47, with a caption that read

"Cats out the bag ❤️."

In one photo, Jason Lee's hand is on a stroller while another is wrapped around Haddish as she cradles her infant in her arms. In another photo, they're lovingly gazing down at the baby as he looks straight into the camera.

As of this writing, neither Haddish nor Jason Lee has outright confirmed whose child that is. However, fans have begun dredging up the latter's past, but more specifically, his late brother, Rodney Dion Townsend. Back in October 2019, during an episode of Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood, the blogger got candid about how his brother lost his life.

He said that Rodney was “in the streets” when he was slain by gun violence. He was 27 years old at the time, and the incident took place on Saturday, March 1, 1997, at the El Dorado Bowl in Stockton, California.

"He stopped gang-banging. He tried to live right. He got a license for the first time-- he had been driving without a license for years," Evelyn Townsend, Jason Lee's mother, said, according to Recordnet.com.

He reportedly threw himself in front of the gun in a bid to save someone else, thereby taking a bullet to his face. He is survived by a wife, Tanya, and two daughters, Simone and Mytae.

Everything we know about Tiffany Haddish and Jason Lee's friendship dynamics:

As reported by USA Today, Tifanny Haddish doubled down on teasing her fans when she shared some photos from a family trip to Six Flags while her caption read:

"Spent the day at Six Flags with the fam. What’d I miss?"

Per People Magazine, in November last year, on Jason Lee's podcast Hollywood Unlocked, the pair admitted they'd be open to conceiving one day, as friends:

“You did promise me you would give me a kid. So let me ask you a question. So I had Cardi B here, she’s already said she’ll be my kid’s godmother. You said you would give me a kid. Are you serious about that?” Lee, who is openly gay, asked Haddish.

She responded,

“Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about the cost of…because I said I wanted to do it the old fashioned way. You said no. So I want to talk to you about the cost of [having a baby]."

In January 2023, Jason Lee told Angie Martinez on his podcast that he and Haddish "keep talking about" welcoming a child together.

"She's offered, and if she's serious — she's somebody that I love, we both were foster kids, I trust her — we've had the conversation of, 'Do you want to be involved? Not involved?'... and now we have to talk about co-parenting," he said.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, by the end of the year, they were posting photos together on Instagram in matching Christmas outfits. One of Jason Lee's captions read:

"My friend, my ride or die, and my future baby mama."

As for Tiffany Haddish, she has long been vocal about adoption, as she told E!'s Daily Pop back in 2021 that she'd taken some parenting classes before explaining why she wasn't looking into surrogacy:

"I'm taking parenting classes now to adopt," she shared. "I'm looking at, you know, 5 and up — really like 7. I want them to be able to know how to use the restroom on their own and talk. I want them to know that I put in the work and I wanted them." She added, "I don't wanna pay no body to carry my baby neither, 'cause then I have to go through a process of giving myself injections and all that stuff. And I already gave up— here goes something everybody don't know, I'm gonna tell you: When I was 21 I was really hard up for some money and I gave up a bunch of eggs."

She went on,

"So who knows. I might got some kids out here in these streets. I doubt it, though, because I never got the bonus. Maybe somewhere though, in cryo somewhere!"

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