Will Smith once again addressed Jada Pinkett Smith’s deep connection with 2Pac in his new memoir, Will.
Twenty five years since ‘Pac’s death, Smith admits he felt insecure about his then-girlfriend’s close relationship with the late rapper, who attended the Baltimore School for the Arts with Jada as a teen.
“Though they were never intimate, their love for each other is legendary – they defined ‘ride or die,’” Smith writes in the book. “In the beginning of our relationship, my mind was tortured by their connection. He was PAC! and I was me. He triggered the perception of myself as a coward. I hated that I wasn’t what he was in the world, and I suffered a raging jealousy: I wanted Jada to look at me like that.”
He goes on to reveal that he felt a “twisted kind of victory” when she ultimately chose him over ‘Pac.
“If she chose me over Tupac, there was no way I could be a coward,” the 54-year-old actor said. “I have rarely felt more validated… I was in a room with Tupac on multiple occasions, but I never spoke to him. The way Jada loved Pac rendered me incapable of being friends with him. I was too immature.”
This isn’t the first time Smith has opened up about Jada and ‘Pac’s bond.
During a 2020 interview on The Breakfast Club, Will, when asked directly if he ever felt “jealous” of the “love” Jada had for the late rapper, responded, “Oh, fuck yeah. Oh my god, that dude. And you know that was in the early days, too. That was a big regret for me because I could never open up to interact with Pac.”
Smith continued, “We had a little bit of a thing because they grew up together and they loved each other but they never had a sexual relationship. But then come into that age where now that was a possibility, and Jada was with me, so Pac had a little thing on that. But she just loved him, he was the image of perfection but she was with the Fresh Prince.”
