While some 28-year-old guys might not be too crazy about still living with their mom, Bow Wow—who now goes by his given name Shad Moss—wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It just makes sense,” the actor tells PEOPLE of the 8-bedroom Atlanta mansion he shares with fiancée Erica Mena, 28, and his mother Teresa Caldwell. “First of all the house is too big, but I want to make sure my mom is comfortable forever.”
So even when Moss proposed to the Love and Hip Hop star last September, he already knew where the couple would settle down.
“I remember when I first moved to Atlanta and Jermaine Dupree had the same situation,” he recalls. “He took part of the house and his mom had the whole rest of it. I said then that I wanted to have the same set up.”
Now, while Moss and Mena have taken over the remodeled basement, Caldwell resides on the main level and second floor.
“It’s like I have a condo downstairs,” says Moss, who splits his time between Atlanta and L.A. to film CSI: Cyber. “I’ve had 100 people there and my mom has been asleep and has never heard the music, screaming, laughter, or drinking. I mean full blown house parties downstairs while she is in the bed asleep. So I’m staying right here.”
Even though all three live under the same roof, it’s easy to miss one another in the spacious digs.
“There’s times where I’ll be down there for three days and we don’t see each other so it’s like I’m out of town even when I’m here,” he says adding one perk of being so close to mom: “I don’t have to get in the car and drive anywhere to see her. I just come up the stairs and say, “What up, Mom.”
