When Lenny Kravitz visited TODAY Plaza at Rockefeller Center in New York City on Thursday, it was a special visit for more than one reason: Rockefeller Center is also the place where his parents met more than six decades ago.

“My parents were in Rockefeller Center, where they met at NBC, so I grew up surrounded by all these buildings in this great city, so it’s always great to be here,” Kravitz told Savannah Guthrie onstage at Citi Concerts on Sept. 12.

The 60-year-old singer also reflected on the beautiful tribute he paid to his late mother, Roxie Roker, on September 11 at the MTV VMAs.

Kravitz won the award for best rock song for “Human,” a song from his latest album, “Blue Electric Light,” and he dedicated the award to his mother.

“Thirty-one years ago, when I won Best Male Video, my mother was with me, and that was the last awards show — and the first awards show — she ever went to before she passed away,” he explained on TODAY Plaza. “So that really meant a lot to me last night, and I dedicated that to my mother.”

Kravitz has spoken candidly in the past about his mother, who died in 1995, and his father, who died in 2005.

Read on to learn more about the musician’s parents, Roxie Roker and Sy Kravitz.

His mother starred in ‘The Jeffersons’

Roxie Roker played Helen Willis on “The Jeffersons” for the sitcom’s 11 seasons, from 1975 to 1985.

She played a black woman married to a white man, Tom Willis (Franklin Cover), a groundbreaking storyline at a time when interracial relationships were rarely seen on TV.

Before starring in “The Jeffersons,” Roker studied acting in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and earned a drama degree from Howard University, according to her obituary in The New York Times.

She also appeared in several off-Broadway shows and received a Tony nomination in 1974 for her performance in “The River Niger.”

After “The Jeffersons,” Roker appeared in television series including “Punky Brewster,” “A Different World” and the miniseries “Roots.”

Lenny Kravitz discussed his mother’s relationship with fame and how it influenced his own approach to fame.

“She was in ‘The Jeffersons.’ She was a grown woman, she knew who she was. All of her values ​​were set,” he told Forbes in 2020. “And I learned so much about how to deal with it. Not so much in terms of people, but in terms of maintaining your character. She stayed who she was, she stayed humble.”

Kravitz also said that she did not live a luxurious life while on the show.

“I grew up without a maid, housekeepers, chauffeurs or assistants. We didn’t have any of that. My mother would scrub her own toilet on Saturday mornings,” he said. “So I did have that education.”

His parents married after meeting at NBC in New York City

Kravitz’s father, Sy Kravitz, was a journalist and television producer. He met Roxie Roker while working as an assignment editor at NBC News, where she was a secretary.

If Roxie Roker’s last name rings a bell, it’s no coincidence; she and TODAY’s Al Roker were second cousins, meaning their grandfathers were cousins.

“A lot of people get Lenny Kravitz and me confused, especially when he has his shirt off,” Al joked on TODAY in 2020.

Roxie Roker and Sy Kravitz married in 1962 and had their only child, Lenny, two years later.

According to The New York Times, Sy Kravitz’s parents did not approve of their interracial marriage and did not attend the wedding.

The couple eventually divorced in 1985.

Roxie Roker had a close bond with her son

Kravitz has often spoken about the close bond he had with his mother, who died of breast cancer in 1995.

“I was a mama’s boy,” he told People in 2020. “She was a woman who never spoke ill of anyone, even if they deserved it. At her funeral, the late actor Brock Peters said, ‘If Roxie met the devil himself, she would say to him, ‘What a beautiful red suit.’ The whole place burst out laughing because That was my mother. She’s going to find the positive thing she can say or do in any situation.″

Kravitz has also said he finds solace in watching old episodes of “The Jeffersons” starring his mother.

“I’m so glad she was on TV because when I need her, I turn on ‘The Jeffersons’ and watch her. It does so much for me,” he told People in February.

He added that his mother is “still everything” to him.

“I probably feel her more since she left the planet,” he said.

Roker and Kravitz made a rare television appearance together in 1991 on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” and their close bond was evident in the way they interacted.

Roker teased her son about his fashion sense, saying that when he changed his hairstyle as a younger man, she said, “No, Lenny, you’re not going to do that?”

She also teased her son for wearing his trademark sunglasses in the dark studio.

“Come on, you can take off your glasses now,” she said, laughing.

Kravitz has opened up about his complicated relationship with his father

In his 2020 memoir, “Let Love Rule,” Kravitz spoke candidly about some painful memories of his father.

He said his father kicked him out of the house for a while when he was 16, The New York Times reported.

He said that when he was 19, he discovered that his father was cheating on his mother. In the book, he recalled that his father said to him about his infidelity, “You do it too.”

“It was the most horrible thing he could have said,” he told The New York Times in 2020. “Those words burned through me. It cost me my whole life to live to deal with. “He said, ‘You do it too,’ grabbed his bag and walked out the front door. It couldn’t have been orchestrated better.”

Kravitz also once openly said that he was afraid of his father as a child.

“My dad was ultimately a very loving and sensitive man, but he was really hardcore,” he said on Oprah’s Master Class podcast in 2018. “Super-tough discipline. He wasn’t the type of guy to talk a lot… I was scared of him as a kid.”

Kravitz said he found peace in his relationship with his father in later years.

He described a transformative experience they had together shortly before his father died in 2005.

“I think he had a spiritual awakening” shortly before his death, Kravitz told CNN’s Piers Morgan in 2011. “He made mistakes, he wished it wasn’t the way it was, he wished he could change it but he didn’t know how. He just admitted it and it was beautiful, and from that point on — he lived another, maybe, month — it was the best month of our lives and it made everything right.”

He also said that writing his 2020 memoir helped him process his memories and feelings about his father.

“Even though we had made peace before he died, I still held on to some stuff. And through writing the book and seeing my father as a character, as a man who was making do with what he had,” he told Forbes. “I was able to see him completely without judgment and see him as a man trying to find his way in this life.”