Jada Pinkett Smith’s outrage over the Tupac Shakur film All Eyez on Me has not subsided one bit. During an appearance Wednesday on The Ryan Cameron Morning Show With Wanda Smith on Atlanta radio’s V-103, while promoting her latest film, Girls Trip, with co-star Regina Hall and producer Will Packer, Pinkett Smith had a strong response to Cameron’s inquiry about All Eyez on Me.
“I wanted people to know that what you’re seeing in regards to my relationship with Tupac is not true, and that was important to me because,” she said, while getting teary-eyed, “my relationship was really special and, um, it was very complicated and, um, I just felt like it was a huge disservice.”
Pinkett Smith said that she believes her and Pac’s relationship would have shed light on “what he truly was, because it’s one thing to see Pac’s persona publicly and who he was personally.”
Pinkett Smith said the fact that she knows the “Code Black dudes” who helped distribute the film made things “even more painful” because they all did the 2012 film Free Angela and All Political Prisoners together. “I thought it was just handled in a very disrespectful way, and I felt like it was exploitive of me and Pac, how they used our relationship to sell a movie, and I just felt like it was tomb-raiding in regards to Pac,” she continued.
“And if you’re really saying that you’re honoring a man’s legacy, then honor his legacy. And if you don’t have the story, fall back until you do,” she chastised with force in her voice. “I feel like we, as black people, we have got to protect those individuals that we say are important to us, to our history and to our culture. We cannot expect other people to do that if we’re not willing to do that ourselves. Pac is precious to us.”
Her parting words to the filmmakers were even more terse: “If you really feel like you did right by Pac, then congratulations. But if you didn’t, really sit with that. ’Cause I hope next time, if you get another opportunity to make another movie about a legend, you’ll do a different thing.”
Check Jada Pinkett Smith’s comments about the film: