After his father left, Shirley took many odd jobs to support the family, up to four at the same time. In his 1996 biography "Bad As I Wanna Be", he expresses his feelings for his father: "I haven't seen my father in more than 30 years, so what's there to miss ... I just look at it like this: Some man brought me into this world. That doesn't mean I have a father". He would not meet his father again until 2012.