The late rapper Tupac Shakur and Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith had a once-in-a-lifetime kind of friendship. Unfortunately, it ended after Shakur tragically passed away.
It has been noted in a new authorized biography of the late rapper, Tupac Shakur by Staci Robinson, that was released last Tuesday by Penguin Random House. In chronicling the music legend’s life, the book explores how significant his relationship was with Pinkett Smith, 52, whom he met in high school when they were aspiring actors and quickly considered a “lifelong friend.”
Robinson penned in the biography, which was authorized by the star’s mother Afeni Shakur Davis before her death in 2016, that the All Eyez on Me artist met the actress at an assembly at their Maryland high school, Baltimore School for the Arts, for students in the theater department. “We hit it off from that moment on,” Pinkett Smith said in a previous interview reprinted in Tupac Shakur.
The Red Table Talk host explained that the two had “a connection” and were able to talk to each other about their financial struggles and mothers’ substance abuse issues. Quickly, they realized their connection meant that they were to be “lifelong friends.”
“When you have somebody that has your back when you feel like you’re nothing, that’s everything,” the Emmy winner said.
The “California Love” rapper’s sister Sekyiwa Shakur opens up about her brother’s relationships with Pinkett Smith and their friend John Cole at the time in the book. “All I remember is John coming over to the house all the time.
And nothing else could be talked about but Jada,” she says in Tupac Shakur. “His music changed. This people changed. And Jada came — the entity! The magazine posters had come off his wall and John’s art went up on his wall. And pictures of Jada.”
