Jada Pinkett-Smith is opening up once again about her friendship with Tupac Shakur, revealing in a new interview that the late rapper asked for her hand in marriage back in 1995.
Speaking with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson for their All the Smoke podcast leading up the release of her highly anticipated memoir, Worthy, Jada explained that Pac proposed to her while he was serving out his prison sentence for sexual abuse at Rikers Island.
“When I wrote about that in the book and when I had to talk about it, speak my words for the Audible version of the book, that was probably one of the more painful parts,” she said. “Seeing him there, the condition that he was in and having to leave him there. He was in bad shape. And so, when he asked me to get married, he was at Rikers.”
She continued:
“And I knew at that time that he needed somebody to do time with him, which I was gonna do anyway. He didn’t have to marry me to do that. I’m here. He needed a rock. He needed—because of our friendship and everything we had been through together, he just wanted to feel that solidified foundation.
‘Cuz I promise you, he would’ve married me and divorced me as soon as his ass got out [of prison]. He would’ve! I can be real with it...I just think it was the mind state that he was in, you know? He wrote me this long letter and I think...even before ‘Pac went to jail, he was starting to shift in a certain manner.
“I think that for him, he just felt like, ‘OK, if I can tether myself, it’ll keep me on a trajectory.’ But trust me, he would’ve divorced me as soon as he — one thing he wouldn’t want me as is a wife. I know that for a fact! But I think just being at Rikers, it just kinda shook him a little,” she concluded.
Wow, the timing of this all so interesting. Pac asked Jada to marry him while he was ar Rikers in 1995. As we previously told you, Jada and her current hubby Will Smith—whom she first met while auditioning for a role on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1994—also started dating in 1995. They’d later wed in ‘97 and have their first child Jaden in ‘98.
If Jada and Pac had wed (and subsequently divorced according to her)—we may not have had the Smith family as we know them today. It’s always been said that one decision can change the entire trajectory of your life. I can’t help but wonder if or how Jada, Pac and Will’s life would have been affected had the former two decided to tie the knot instead.