They were tears of joy!

Jay-Z sat down with David Letterman for his Netflix show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, and discussed a variety of topics about his life, including when his mother came out to him as gay.

"Imagine having lived your life for someone else. And you think you're protecting your kids. For my mother to have to live as someone that she wasn't and hide and like, protect her kids — and didn't want to embarrass her kids... for all this time. For her to sit in front of me and tell me, 'I think I love someone'. I mean, I really cried," he told the legendary late night host.

The rapper revealed that he had known about her sexuality for some time, but they only got around to discussing it eight months ago when he was recording an album, which included a track about his mom being a lesbian.

"I knew. But this was the first time we had the conversation. And the first time I heard her say she loved her partner, like, 'I feel like I love somebody'. She said, 'I feel like'. She held that little bit back, still. She didn't say, 'I'm in love', she said, 'I feel like I love someone', and I just, I cried. I don't even believe in crying because you're happy. I don't even know what that is. What is that?" he added.

Hova also shared a sweet anecdote about daughter Blue Ivy that totally stopped him in his tracks.

"I told her to get in the car the other day because she was asking a thousand questions and we had to leave for school. We're driving and then I just hear a little voice...'Dad. I didn't like when you told me to get in the car the way you told me. It hurt my feelings.' I was like, 'That's the most beautiful thing you've ever said to me,'" the hip-hop star gushed.

He's just a big softie!