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How Rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard Lifted a Car to Save a 4-Year-Old Girl (Exclusive)


How Rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard Lifted a Car to Save a 4-Year-Old Girl (Exclusive)

A New York woman looks back at the moment Ol’ Dirty Bastard saved her daughter over 26 years ago after she was hit by a car and trapped underneath.

In an exclusive clip from Ol’ Dirty Bastard: The story of two dirty guysthe official documentary about the life of the late, legendary Wu-Tang Clan rapper, which premiered August 25 on A&E, Maxine Lovell and her daughter Maati reflect on the terrifying moment Maati was hit by a car in Brooklyn in 1998 when she was just 4 years old.

Looking back on the incident in which Maati was trapped under a 1996 Mustang, the two say the car “appeared out of nowhere” while Maati was with her older sister.

ODB also came out of nowhere, Maati’s mother remembers.

“Maati was nowhere. I couldn’t find her. And I kept saying, ‘Where is my daughter? Where is my daughter? Where is my daughter?’ And everyone said, ‘Under the car.’ When I bent down, all I saw was her. And she wasn’t crying, she wasn’t screaming,” Lovell says in the documentary. “But when she saw me, she screamed.”

“I remember details of the accident,” Maati recalls. “I remember the heat.”

Ol’ Dirty Bastard poses for a portrait in New York City in April 1997.

Bob Berg/Getty


Of course, ODB couldn’t lift the car on his own; he got help from other passersby before he pulled the girl out from under the car and brought her to safety. New York Daily News An article following the accident noted that ODB was one of a dozen people who rushed to Maati’s aid and that the incident occurred outside Papa Wu’s Brooklyn Sounds recording studios on Fulton Street.

“A couple of brothers came out of nowhere,” Lovell said at the time. “They lifted the car. Someone pushed (Maati) out from under it. She wasn’t crying and she wasn’t screaming. She didn’t know what had happened to her. But when she saw my face, she started moaning.”

The collision left Maati with her coat “burnt” and burns on her leg and she was taken to a local hospital, her mother recalls in the document.

“He kept checking in on us – he didn’t just leave it at that,” Lovell says of ODB. “And I told him, ‘If you want to talk, call me.’ So he called me and told me things that were on his mind. And he was glad he was there (when Maati needed help). I think he wanted to prove he was a good guy, and I said, ‘I agree. You definitely helped my kid.'”

“It shows what kind of person he is,” adds Maati.

Ol’ Dirty Bastard in New York City in April 1995.

Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty


Maati’s rescue story is just one of many moments that The story of two dirty girlswhich covers the rise of Wu-Tang, ODB’s solo success, his legendary “Fantasy” collaboration with Mariah Carey, his time in prison, and his untimely death from an overdose on November 13, 2004, two days before his 36th birthday.

The documentary also features Carey, members of ODB’s immediate family, and Wu-Tang members Raekwon and Ghostface Killah.

Ol’ Dirty Bastard: The story of two dirty guys Premieres Sunday, August 25 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on A&E.

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