Actress Jada Pinkett Smith clears up the dynamic between her and late rapper Tupac Shakur in an interview that recently surfaced online.
Although Pinkett Smith and Shakur were never an official couple, there has always been speculation surrounding their friendship due to their external admiration for each other. Now, an interview from 2015 has resurfaced where the actress made it clear the two were meant to be platonic friends following a kissing test.
Howard Stern led the interview with the Girl’s Trip star and dived into the history of her and Tupac’s relationship. Pinkett Smith confirmed they met in high school and he’s always been someone with great charisma, despite only owning two pairs of pants and two sweaters.
“I met Tupac at the Baltimore School of the Arts. We went to high school together,” she said.
Stern brought up how Shakur’s mother, the late Afeni Shakur, was a Black Panther and asked if the Juice actor was the gangsta we all thought he was.
Pinkett Smith responded by saying, “He was a revolutionary without a revolution if that makes any kind of sense? That kind of energy just transferred into a whole other thing.”
It’s no secret that Shakur wrote poems for his beloved friend. Pinkett Smith shared a couple of them on her Instagram, in celebration of his birthday.
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Stern asked the mother of two her opinion on if the poems were evidence that Shakur was in love with her at one point in time. She denied such, saying there was no sexual chemistry.
“Now being older, I have more of an understanding of what that was between us,” she began. “When you have two young people who have very strong feelings but there is no physical chemistry between us at all. And it wasn’t even just for me. It was him too.”
Pinkett Smith further explained that she even threw a test out there to confirm if the love they had for each other was possibly romantic.
“There was a time when I was like, just kiss me … let’s just see how this goes. And when I tell you it had to be the most disgusting kiss for us both,” the Red Table Talk host reminisced while laughing.
“The only way I can put it is the Higher Power just did not want that because I feel as though if Pac and I had any kind of sexual chemistry, we might have killed each other because we were both so passionate and we loved deeply,” Pinkett Smith said.
The two eventually fell out after their careers began to take off in Hollywood, due to a disagreement about the route Shakur was taking at the time. Despite the two being on the outs when he passed, when asked if she felt guilty they were unable to rekindle the friendship, Pinkett Smith confirmed the love never died.
“I don’t think I was guilty as much as I felt just sadness for not having the opportunity to tell him I love him, but I know he knew that,” she said teary-eyed.
The interview ended with Pinkett Smith sharing how his life was taken too soon, making clear she was proud that Shakur made a huge impact on the world in his short time here on earth.
