Snoop Dogg really was living the life he described in his rap songs - one punctuated with women and drugs - and it was destroying his marriage to his wife, who is also the Mother of his three children:

"You know, I was caught up with Hollywood, and the girls and the night life," Snoop said in 2008.

Snoop even filed for divorce, but the couple reconciled and renewed their vows to celebrate their 10th anniversary in 2008; they were originally married in June of 1997.

"I thought I was the man and I was willing to give up what I had at home for that, until I realized that what I had at home was irreplaceable, so I gave that up to go back home," Snoop said.

Now Snoop and Shante have revealed to People Magazine that the discovery that their then-6-year-old daughter, Cori (pictured above, third from right), had lupus helped to bring their family closer.





Initially, the couple noticed spots on their daughter's face. They saw her dropping large amounts of weight without explanation and they saw her hair coming out.

Doctor after doctor couldn't explain what was happening.

"I felt helpless," Snoop told People while fighting back tears. "No power, no friends."

Snoop's wife was also feeling desperate as she watched her child go through test after test:

"No one could tell me what was wrong. They drew tons of blood and said she has old-person cells. They gave her all kinds of [medication]. But she went downhill."

After the diagnosis, Snoop says he and his family went on a journey together to learn about the disease. Snoop and his wife even went to counseling.

"The counselor was helping us to try and become a stronger couple," Snoop said.

Shante said her family needed all the strength it could muster to deal with the situation. "Without (Snoop) I don't know what I'd have done," she said.

When the time came to tell Cori about her illness, Shante says she gathered the family together, prayed and showed a video about lupus. Over the next few months, the family would continue to be tested as they searched for the proper medicine for Cori's lupus.

One medicine gave her hives while steroids made her gain and lose a lot of weight. It was only after special pediatric care that doctors put together a regimen that works.

That difficult process brought Snoop's family back together.

"That's what it boiled down to," said Snoop. "Cori's lupus showed us we need to be together forever."

Sometimes it takes a tragedy or difficult times for people to realize what's really important in their lives. For Snoop, it was his daughter's illness.

Today, Snoop's daughter is healthier and enjoying being a teenager:

"She's the toughest little thing I've ever met," the rapper says of his daughter. "She's on the honor roll, playing volleyball and softball, living life. She has all this joy. In the beginning, lupus was winning. But now Cori is."

Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease, where the body's defenses attack its own healthy cells as opposed to foreign viruses, germs and bacteria. Skin, joints and organs can be affected. The disease can be life threatening, and those who have it go through periods where the disease flares up and then goes in to remission.

Doctors do not know what causes the disease but believe it is related to a genetic mutation. Approximately 1.5 million Americans have the disease and women ages 15 to 44 are most prone.

Women of color are two to three more likely than whites to develop the disease.

Black women also develop the disease earlier, have more severe symptoms (including kidney problems) and are more likely to die from the disease.

Still, awareness about the disease is lagging, according to the Lupus Foundation of America. One survey found that only 40 percent of young people surveyed had even heard of the disease, although young adulthood is when the disease is most likely to strike.

These days, Shante and Snoop are out raising awareness about the disease. They have participated in several fundraisers for Lupus LA and Shante officialy joined the group's board of directors earlier this month.

"It's amazing how this all turned out. We were gonna get a divorce. But we wouldn't have gotten through it (that way,)" Shante said.