Friday marks what would have been 2Pac's 46th birthday. The release of All Eyez on Me, the long-awaited Tupac Shakur biopic, coincides with this celebratory day for fans and is garnering mixed reviews.
Known 2Pac friend Jada Pinkett Smith, portrayed in the film by Kat Graham, criticized the film's handling of their relationship in a series of tweets Friday. According to Smith, the film's "reimagining" contains multiple "hurtful" inaccuracies.
"Forgive me... my relationship to Pac is too precious to me for the scenes in All Eyez On Me to stand as truth," Smith said in a series of tweets Friday. "Pac never read me that poem. I didn't know that poem existed until it was printed in his book. Pac never said goodbye to me before leaving for LA. He had to leave abruptly and it wasn't to pursue his career. I've never been to any of Pac's shows by his request. We never had an argument backstage. The reimagining of my relationship to Pac has been deeply hurtful."
Smith also mentioned Graham and star Demetrius Shipp Jr., thanking them for their performances. "This is no fault of yours," she said. "Thank you for bringing so much heart and spirit to your roles. You both did a beautiful job with what you were given." Smith closed out her tweetstorm with a happy birthday message for 2Pac. Read the tweets in full below.
In an interview with Vanity Fair Tuesday, Graham addressed previous criticism from John Singleton. The director was originally set to helm the 2Pac biopic, but exited the project due to alleged "major creative differences" in 2015. In an interview in 2016, Singleton said he knew the film had been "fucked up" and would thus receive no attention from him.
"John's a personal friend of mine, but I haven't talked to him about it," Graham said this week. "I don't know that he's seen it yet. I know he hadn't seen it at the time he made those comments. It's so fucking hard to make a black biopic. It is fucking hard to get the money, and if it's based on a musician, to get the clearance together. It's so hard to make a movie period, let alone one that features as much diversity as this film."
All Eyez on Me is in theaters now.
