Rapper T.I. and the 24-year-old man he helped convince not to jump off a Midtown skyscraper were reunited Monday on V-103's Ryan Cameron Show.
Joshua Starks told Cameron that T.I.'s intervention helped teach him that "giving up is not an option."
"What I realize is now I just need to put forth that extra effort that I thought wasn't there, that I now know is there," said Starks, who was reportedly depressed over being unemployed and unspecified legal problems.
"Knowing you have a strong support group of people who really do care about you, which I now know more than ever, and to just not only not let them down, but not let myself down either anymore," he continued. "After I got off the ledge and everything, that's kind of how I felt myself: Man, I was really about to let myself down and let everything go."
Starks said he realized how many people he'd hurt if he committed suicide.
"Giving up is not an option," he said, "because God definitely let me know that I can't give up."
T.I. said Starks "hit the nail on the head."
"All of the things we go through in life, they just prepare us for the next battle," said the rapper and film star, who is headed back to prison soon to serve 11 more months.
"I think you were able to make it through this with, I guess, minimal injury, maximum lesson learned," T.I. said.
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., said he was heading to a video shoot last Wednesday when he heard on the radio about a man threatening to jump from Colony Square, a 22-story building. T.I. drove to the scene and offered to talk to the man. An officer at street level recorded a video message from T.I. and sent it to a negotiator on the roof, who showed it to Starks.
Starks came down, then spoke to T.I. for a few minutes.
Two days later, U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell Jr., citing T.I.'s drug arrest in Los Angeles on Sept. 1, sentenced Harris to 11 more months in prison for violating his probation on weapons charges. The sentence will begin at a later date.
Pannell told Harris he will be on probation again following his release from prison and could receive up to three more years if he commits another offense.