Jada Pinkett Smith Reveals She Was Selling Drugs When She Met Tupac Shakur
Jada Pinkett Smith may now be a famous Hollywood actress, but there was a time when she was hustling in the drug game to make ends meet. During her conversation with Sway In The Morning this week to promote her upcoming movie Girls Trip, the Gotham entertainer speaks on her former friendship with the late Tupac Shakur, revealing that she was a drug dealer when they met.
Jada says that she was selling drugs before she met `Pac, and was more heavily involved in making money that way before she went on to pursue her acting career. If you recall, she says that moments of their friendship were falsely portrayed in the Tupac biopic, All Eyez on Me.
"One of the things that's very interesting that I've never really said before is that when I first met Pac, when we first met, I was a drug dealer,” she tells the hosts.
She also says that after she got out of the game and was on a better path with her career, she tried to encourage Tupac to get out of that negative lifestyle himself. He was unfortunately shot in a drive-by shooting in 1996, and died in a Los Vegas hospital six days later due to his injuries.
"There was a point in which we met and then we kind of were going our separate ways,” she explains. "I just felt like, 'OK God, one day you're going to do for Pac what you did for me, which is you saved me. And that just never happened for him. And so that is something that I am constantly having to confront.”
Over the years, fans have been connecting Jada and Tupac as if they were a couple, but she makes sure to shut that down, stating that they were friends "based in survival."
"I know that most people wanna always connect us in this romance thing, but that's just because they don't have the story," she says. "But it was based in survival, how we held each other down. You know what I’m saying? And when we have somebody that has your back when you feel like you're nothing, that's everything.”
She says that she is revealing she sold drugs as a means to try and shed light on the circumstances of her friendship with Tupac, confirming it was far from romantic despite the famous poem that he wrote for her.
"I just decided that one little piece was important to share finally because it gives more insight to who we were that it wasn't just about, 'You have this cute girl and this cool guy. They must have been in this [romance]!' Jada details. "Nah. It wasn’t that at all. It was about survival and it's always been about survival between us. You know what I’m saying? And holding each other down in ways that he and I could hold each other down."
See Jada's full interview with Sway in the video below.
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