Apparently, Jada Pinkett Smith was the plug.
Stop laughing. She’s serious.
Jada Pinkett Smith appeared on Sway in the Morning Wednesday, promoting her movie Girls Trip. When the host of the morning show on SiriusXM channel Shade 45 asked her about Tupac, Pinkett Smith revealed that she was a dope dealer when she met Tupac, although she said she didn’t want to go into the details because she claimed to be writing a book about it.
C’mon son.
We can all confirm that Tupac and Jada were lifelong friends, although there is some question about the exact nature of the relationship. Jada says it was a platonic friendship, while Tupac claimed it was more. The iconic rapper first met Jada when the two attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where they developed a close relationship.
“When we first met, I was a drug dealer,” Pinkett Smith told Sway when he asked her about her relationship with Pac. “As I was coming out of the life, he was going more into the life.”
Hold up. I know being gangsta is en vogue right now, and everyone wants to say they grew up in “the hood,” but I’ve seen The Wire. If Pinkett Smith wants me to believe that she was in high school slinging dope with the corner boys in Baltimore, but that somehow she, and everyone who knew her or bought drugs from her, kept all of this a secret for 30 years, she’s going to have to come better than that. I have some questions:
- What drugs did she sell? If you bought a 20-sack of weed and sold your girlfriend a dime bag, I don’t think that’s technically being a “drug dealer.” You can put it on your résumé if you want, but I don’t think they’ll let you into the union.
- How, Sway? (I’m required to put that line in every story about Sway since the Kanye thing happened.)
- Jada Pinkett Smith is 110 pounds soaking wet. If I went to buy some weed, crack, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, mushrooms, insurance or even some goddamn Girl Scout cookies, and a 16-year-old Jada Pinkett was the dealer—I’d have taken whatever she had. Especially if it was the Thin Mints. If it was the Trefoils, I might not have robbed her.
- Was she still slinging when she went to Hillman? Is that how she met Cain in Menace to Society, and the girls in Set It Off?
I’m not calling Jada Pinkett Smith a liar because she wants us to believe that—between her and Tupac—she was the gangster. I’m just saying, in the words of the great philosopher-poet Shawn Carter: “We don’t believe you. You need more people.”
View the entire Sway in the Morning interview below:
