Jada Pinkett Smith's Memoir Sets Record Straight On Tupac

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While many of the headlines about Pinkett Smith in the last week have focused on her marriage to and separation from Will Smith, Tupac fans have also had a lot to say about Jada’s book. Interestingly, the actress says she actually hoped her memoir would make it clear once and for all that her relationship with Tupac was always only a friendship and nothing more.

“I will say one of the records I am glad to set straight is the fact that Pac and I were friends,” Pinkett Smith told us in our interview. “I think that people will have a better understanding of what our relationship was from this book, that is one record I’m glad to set straight.”

While her intention was to set the record straight, a number of pre-release interviews focused on Pinkett Smith detailing how Tupac proposed to her in a 1995 letter dated Feb. 2 or 3. While the book describes how he even called Jada’s mom Adrienne to ask for her blessing, Jada told BOSSIP that she never seriously considered accepting his proposal.

“That’s why I tried to really explain what his condition was at Rikers, because that was really, that was just more about him needing a tether,” Pinkett-Smith explained to BOSSIP. “I promise you, if we had gotten married, as soon as he walked out the gates of that jail, he would’ve divorced my a** so quick! He didn’t want me as a wife. That’s for damn sure. He just he needed somebody he could depend on to get him through that jail time, which I understood and we definitely came to an understanding around that.”

Tupac has also been back in the news outside of Pinkett Smith, thanks to a recent arrest in his 1996 murder.

“That day of the arrest wasn’t easy,” Jada recalls. “This person has always said that they were in the car during that night and I’m just hoping that we’ll get more answers.”

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Although Jada’s bombshell Today show interview hadn’t yet aired when we spoke, we asked the actress if she was bracing herself for some inevitable backlash from her disclosures.

“Honestly what else could people possibly say at this point?” Pinkett Smith questioned. “That’s part of the reason why I had the confidence to just tell my story, because I’m like, ‘OK what else can people say?’ I’m still breathing. My heart is still beating. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been. People are gonna say what they’re gonna say. I put my heart and soul into this book with really beautiful intention and I know that to be true and however anybody else takes to it is really not my business. People who get my intention will get it and people who don’t, won’t. All of it’s welcome.”

Jada also described her and Will Smith’s relationship as “fantastic,” when we asked her about their current status.

“It’s been fantastic,” Pinkett Smith said. “We’re in a really beautiful place. We are doing a lot of healing together and also doing our individual work and things are really good.”

Bigger than just her and Will’s marriage, Jada told us that she hoped her admissions both in and around Worthy would help others have a healthier perspective on relationships.

“My whole thing is really just trying to dismantle all the romanticism around relationships and people just understanding that relationships are about work,” Pinkett Smith said. “Specifically for the African American community and all the woundedness that we as Black women have, as our Black men have, you know our circumstances and how we have to work together and some of the things that we gotta help each other get through together. Sometimes it’s extreme. But that relationship is a holy path — to get to love, to get to that authentic love and sometimes it’s some stormy weather until we get to that place.”

Jada Pinkett Smith’s memoir Worthy is available now.