Jada Pinkett Smith is often asked about her close relationship with Tupac Shakur, who died from injuries he sustained in a drive-by shooting in 1996 at age 25.
The 48-year-old mother of two opened up about Tupac during a discussion on her Red Table Talk web series with guest Robyn Crawford, a lesbian who wrote a book about her relationship with the late Whitney Houston.
Both Jada and Robyn have been accused of embellishing their relationships with the dead superstars.
During the chat Jada explained that she understood Whitney and Robyn’s close bond because of the friendship she shared with the rapper before his death.
“I understood because of the complex relationship I’ve had with ‘Pac and those moments of “Who’s that?” Knowing damn well there ain’t nothing like that between us.”
Jada said Tupac confided his fears that he would “go off the rails” if they were no longer friends because she gave him “stability”.
“Him feeling like, ‘You’re the only stability I got, I can’t afford for you to put that attention elsewhere’,” Jada explained. “For him, it was, we were an anchor for each other. Anytime he felt like that anchor was threatened, oh my God.”
“When you said (the book is) a love letter to Whitney, that resonated as so powerful,” she told Robyn, 55. “It was so healing for me in so many different ways,” Jada said of Robyn’s new memoir, A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston.
“It’s hard to live with someone who has had a legacy at the level she has had and then to lose them under tragic circumstances. I have a very similar situation,” she continued.
The Girls Trip actress and the bad boy rapper both studied at the Baltimore School of the Arts before finding fame in their respective fields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfTSMPL3LZw
