Will Smith talked openly about his jealousy of the relationship late rapper Tupac had with his Wife Jada Pinkett Smith. He expresses this in his new memoir, Will, which was released Tuesday (November 9). His wife, Jada Pinkett, was close with the legendary rapper after meeting at the Baltimore School for the Arts in the 1980s, causing Will Smith to feel threatened by their past.
“Though they were never intimate, their love for each other is legendary – they defined ‘ride or die,’” he 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 also talks about Tupac having a “fearless passion that was intoxicating, a militant morality, and a willingness to fight and die for what he believed was right.”
Will Smith continues, “Pac was like Harry [Smith’s younger brother] – 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.”
“If she chose me over Tupac, there was no way I could be a coward,” Will Smith says. “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.”