Yungeen Ace is opening up about a heartbreaking moment from his childhood that shaped how he’s lived his entire life.
In an appearance on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast, the Jacksonville rapper — born Keyanta Bullard — revealed why he’s never celebrated his birthday. Now 27, the artist explained that a traumatic event on his 12th birthday has haunted him ever since.
Ace shared that on what should have been a joyful day, he instead found himself at gunpoint — threatened by someone he knew.
“He pointed a gun at my head and said, ‘What you want for your birthday?’” Ace recalled. “I told him, ‘I want to go live with my mom.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Boy, you ain’t going nowhere.’”
The moment Ace said it, it left him feeling completely powerless and fundamentally changed how he viewed life and celebrations.
“That’s when I felt like I couldn’t go anymore,”
He said. Since then, birthdays have never felt like something worth celebrating.
The gunpoint encounter wasn’t an isolated incident. Ace revealed that he spent much of his childhood separated from his mother and siblings, living in environments filled with abuse and fear.
“I was locked in rooms. I was beat with stuff. I had dogs sicced on me,”
He said, noting that the scars from those attacks are still visible — though now hidden beneath tattoos.
“There was no room for play. There was no joy.”
Despite enduring years of trauma, Ace has worked to transform his pain into purpose. He credits those painful experiences with helping him develop the independence and resilience that would later carry him through life — and into the spotlight.
“These things made me who I am today,” he shared. “It taught me how to walk my own path, how to stand out on my own. I can walk into any room by myself and be me.”
In 2018, the rapper survived a mass shooting that left him with eight gunshot wounds and claimed the lives of his brother and two close friends. The trauma from that day still lingers, and Ace has spoken openly about dealing with PTSD and survivor’s guilt.
Now a father to two young sons, Ace is determined to break the cycle. He calls his children his “safe place” and says his biggest mission in life is to give them the childhood he never had.
“I just want to protect them from everything I went through,” he said. “They’ll never feel that kind of pain.”
Yungeen Ace has built a career around his raw honesty — and fans have connected deeply with his willingness to share his truth. By opening up about his past, including the trauma that turned birthdays into a source of pain, Ace is helping to shed light on the hidden struggles that many people face behind closed doors.
“I know there’s people going through the same thing,” he said. “If I can talk about it, maybe it helps them find their own way.”
