Jada Pinkett Smith on first impression of Tupac and their 'emotional intimacy'

16 October 2023 , 16:03

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Jada Pinkett Smith on first impression of Tupac and their 'emotional intimacy'

Jada Pinkett Smith has opened up about her friendship with the late Tupac Shakur, sharing that they became "inseparable" but couldn't develop a romance together.

The actor, 52, spoke about the latter rapper - who died in 1996 - whilst a guest on the Diary Of A CEO podcast. The episode was released this morning ahead of her upcoming memoir Worthy, which is due to be published on Tuesday.

During the interview, Jada recalled meeting Tupac when they were both students at Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) in Maryland. She also spoke about their relationship, which she said featured "a lot of emotional intimacy".

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Tupac Shakur (left) and Jada Pinkett Smith (right) became close pals after meeting in high school (Getty Images)

She's spoken about their relationship whilst promoting her new memoir Worthy (WireImage)

Recalling her first day at performing arts high school BSA, she told host Steven Bartlett: "As soon as I walk in, he's holding court." She added that Tupac was "charismatic from day one" and then discussed the pair's first interaction.

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She said: "I'm walking in, I got the rat-tail, I got the fly clothes, you know. And he turns and we ... our eyes just meet. [...] And I'm going to hold my court y'know. [...] I'm like 'ah okay cool yeah whatever' and so he comes over and he's like 'hey I'm Tupac'. And I'm like 'Tupac?'. The name from the gate was like, I'd never heard a name like that before. It was such a powerful, different name.

"And he had this big smile. And I was like 'it's not a lot of people that have that kind of like charisma and courage to walk up on me and [be] like 'I'm Tupac [...] you need to know me''. And right from there, inseparable. We became the best of friends from that moment on. We just connected; it was like we already knew each other. It was crazy."

She spoke about the late rapper whilst a guest on the Diary of a CEO podcast recently (The Diary Of A CEO/YouTube)

Jada went on to state that people have a "really hard time" understanding that they weren't ever a couple. She added: "Pac and I had a hard time understanding why it just didn't ... we didn't have it." She said that it's mentioned in her book.

She recalled asking him to "just kiss [her]" on one occasion, before saying: "He kisses me and it's the most disgusting kiss between us both." Jada said that they both "pulled back" from the embrace. She added that they shared a kiss on another occasion too, but again, she wasn't impressed.

"It doesn't work," she recalled. "But throughout our relationship, we definitely had this beautiful closeness that was really intimate but never physically intimate. A lot of emotional intimacy [and] a lot of intellectual intimacy."

"We just knew how to reach each other in ways that was very difficult. We knew how to get around each other's walls and we didn't get offended when we would fall into our defaults of defence, which could be pretty fierce," she said.

Asked if she foresaw the success he would have, she told host Steven: "I did not know he would become the Tupac we know him to be, but I knew that he was gonna do something great."

Further discussing his talent, she said: "He wore his heart on his sleeve [...] He just knew how to penetrate those emotional spaces in people. [...] He knew how to join you emotionally." Jada added that he was "authentic" and "raw" as an artist during his music career.

Joel Leaver