Shemar Moore Reveals How His Mother's Death Changed His Life (Exclusive)

For Shemar Moore, fatherhood wasn't a focus for most of his life, but when his mother suddenly died, everything changed for the actor.

“When my mother died, I felt like I was completely exhausted,” Moore, 54, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. His mother, Marylin Joan Wilson-Moore, died in 2020 from multiple sclerosis and heart disease.

At that point, he had been acting for just under three decades, but he remembers feeling largely “selfish” about the way he had spent his life. “I pursued my career so hard because I was – and still am – so determined not to fail. But what do you sacrifice in this pursuit of not failing? What do you lose?”

Marylin's death did that SWAT Star realizes how much he has given up. “I thought, 'Wow, I was selfish.' For me it was all about my career, I was all about chasing girls and living with my mates. And all she ever wanted was to be a grandma.

It was her “dream,” he says. “And I still feel bad about it.”

In January 2023, just before the third anniversary of Marylin's death, he gave birth to his first child, daughter Frankie, with girlfriend Jesiree Dizon, and since then the star has had a whole new perspective on his career.

“Now I just want to perform from a passionate place. Whether there are a lot of people watching or just a few people, whether there is an award attached to it or not, I just want to perform and make my mother proud,” he says. “And then one day Frankie will say, ‘That’s my daddy. This is my daddy.' That's it. That's it.

Looking back, he says Marylin's death was both “the hardest time of my career” and “the hardest time of my life.”

“She was my inspiration. She was my best friend. We loved hard, we fought hard, but there was no filter. My mother raised me with absolute honesty. We talked about sex, we talked about drugs. We talked about religion, we talked about politics. We talked about the good. She gave me structure. She gave me hope.

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He continues: “My life and my career should make them proud. She still is. Your voice is always in my head and my heart. 'What would my mother say? How would my mother feel about that?' It touched me and still touches me today. I miss her very much.

The shock of the loss only increased that pain. “I didn’t know she was leaving,” he says. “I don’t know if it would have been different if the writing had been on the wall. I just woke up on a Saturday and got slapped in the face.”

She had “health problems,” Moore notes, since she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999, but “she didn’t want to leave.”

“I think she was tired,” he admits. “She was a superhero. She wanted to take care of the world. She wanted to take care of everyone, but she didn't know how to take care of herself. And I tried my best to do that, but I'm a loner. “Kid, I couldn't be there 24/7.

For more on Shemar Moore, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on sale Friday.

“It was the hardest moment of my life and it affected my career. He brought me to my knees. It made me angry, it makes me sad, but it makes me incredibly stronger to survive and win by any means necessary,” he says.

Now he's focused on “being the best friend I can be, being the best version of myself, being the best partner and being the best damn dad I never had for Frankie.”