August Alsina Tearfully Opens Up About Adopting Nieces After His Sister’s Death

August Alsina is the caretaker for his three nieces following his sister-in-law Chandra’s death in 2018, and he takes his role in their lives very seriously.

While talking to VH1 for the finale of The Surreal Life on Monday (November 21), the “Entanglements” singer tearfully opened up about adopting the three young girls and how he can feel like a bad parent at times because of his busy lifestyle.

“When my sister died, she asked me if I would take custody of my nieces and I told her I would, so I became the legal guardian of my three nieces,” Alsina began. “My relationship with my nieces is, I guess, a complex thing because I can sometimes feel like a bad parent, an absentee parent because of parts of my life and I’m missing out on certain parts of their life. And I just feel for them and parts of their journey.”

In another part of the clip, his nieces were asked what they love about their uncle. “I like that I can talk to him about anything,” one said. “He understands me,” said another, while the third echoed her sentiments with, “Understanding!”

Chandra died from cancer on Christmas Day in 2018, eight years after losing her fiancé Melvin — August’s older brother — to gun violence.

“My Sister, My friend, life giver to my nieces, my hair magician, my biggest supporter, my number one fan,” he wrote in an Instagram post at the time of her death. “We lost such a beautiful soul on Christmas Night To the battle with cancer. I am Utterly devastated & Deeply shattered! Not only for myself, but for my 3 little nieces, whom are now robbed of BOTH parents.

“First they killed Mel, Now Cancer has stolen you,” he continued. “What is life? Why is life? Why is THIS life? I’m calling on God for the answers.”

On a positive note, The Surreal Life‘s Monday night finale also revealed that August Alsina has found new love in his life. The singer opened up about the love entering his world in a “new way” and wanting to honor “the person that I love” before introducing a man onto the screen and telling him he loves him.

“Love showed up – but in a new way. I wanna share that and really honor the person that I love and that loves me back and teaching me so much about love and healing,” Alsina said. “I wanna do that in front of the world because it defies all the constructs that one would say love is supposed to be or love should look like.”