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Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur had a close relationship, though they were never romantic. They also had a falling out and weren’t on speaking terms at the time of his death. Pinkett Smith shared the details of their friendship and how they ended up not speaking for years.

Jada Pinkett Smith attends the 'Girls Trip' Paris Premiere 2017
Jada Pinkett Smith | Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur hit it off immediately

Pinkett Smith and Tupac became fast friends at Baltimore High School for the Arts. “It was the first day and he came over to me and introduced himself,” she recalled in an old interview. “And in high school, Pac was a little funny looking. Definitely from looking at him, wasn’t necessarily the type of cat that I would even, like, deal with.”

She continued, “But as soon as he approached me, he was like a magnet. Once you paid attention to him he kind of sucked you in. And we hit it off from that moment on … I don’t think either one of us thought we would have made it in the way that we did, but we knew we were gonna do something.”

Pinkett Smith explained how she shifted her life in a different direction

Pinkett Smith revealed in a 2017 interview for Sirius XM Sway’s Universe, “When I first met Pac, when we first met, I was a drug dealer” and explained to Access Hollywood how her mother saved her from the dangerous path she was on.

“My mother got me out of Baltimore — I had gotten a scholarship … to go to North Carolina School for the Arts, and something really horrible had happened to me that she found out about,” the actor explained. “And, you know, one day she just packed the car and was just like, ‘You’re gettin’ outta here.'”

She said she found that shift in her life impacted her relationship with Tupac. “I had started out one way, and Pac, you know, started out one way, and then we kinda switched roles,” she explained, “It was the thing that bound us, but it was also the thing that broke us apart as well.”

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Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur had a falling out

The two had been close, but Pinkett Smith explained that it wasn’t uncommon for them to have huge disagreements.

She explained during an interview with Howard Stern how she and Tupac got to a place where they weren’t talking for a couple of years leading up to his murder in 1996. She said she regretted not having the chance to say she loved him.

“We had a very hardcore disagreement … I just wasn’t in agreement with the direction that he was taking. He felt as though I had changed,” she explained. “Looking back now, I totally understand where Pac was, because at that particular point in time, that mentality was part of his survival … [but] it was a mentality that he started to come out of before he was murdered.” 

Pinkett Smith shared the “sadness” she felt over losing her friend and “not having the opportunity to tell him that I loved him.” She added, “But, I know he knew that. It wasn’t the first time that we had had a bad argument and had stopped speaking. That was kind of a constant in our relationship.”

Out of the tragedy, Pinkett Smith learned a huge lesson. “Life is too short,” she explained. “Do not let disagreements stand in between you and people that you love and care about.”

“You know, I love him,” she added. “He left a very strong and powerful mark. People are still inspired by him. So he did his work.”

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