A video of Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur dancing and lip-syncing to a Will Smith song has resurfaced amid the fallout of the actor's now-infamous Oscars slap.
Pinkett Smith's close relationship with the late rapper is well-known as the two remained close friends after attending Baltimore School for the Arts together when they were teenagers in the 1980s.
The Smith family has been in the news non-stop after the actor walked on stage at the Academy Awards and slapped Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife's shaved head.
The incident has rocked Hollywood and plunged Will and Jada's marriage into the spotlight, with Pinkett Smith's extra-martial affair and the couple's open relationship making headlines once again.
Ironically, a clip of Pinkett Smith and Shakur dancing to a song by Smith—who would be her future husband—in 1988 is starting to do the rounds again.
The video, shared recently on TikTok, shows the pair dancing and lip syncing to the song "Parents Don't Just Understand" by Smith's hip-hop duo, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.
The clip has racked up almost 60,000 views on TikTok, while multiple versions are available on YouTube, some with more than 200,000 views.
Smith and Pinkett Smith have been one of Hollywood's most famous couples for decades after tying the knot in 1997.
However, the King Richard star recently opened up about his wife's relationship with the late Shakur, describing his "raging jealousy" in his memoir released in 2021.
"Though they were never intimate, their love for each other is legendary—they defined 'ride or die,'" he writes in Will.
"In the beginning of our relationship, my mind was tortured by their connection. He was PAC! And I was me."
Pinkett Smith has spoken of her great love for the rapper but confirmed there was never any romance between them.
"I know that most people want to always connect it in this romance thing, but that's just because they don't have the story," Pinkett Smith said of her relationship with Shakur in a 2017 interview with Sirius XM host Sway Calloway.
In 2018, she called their connection "precious" and admitted that they kissed but didn't enjoy it.
"You know, it's so funny because now being older, I have more of an understanding of what that was between us," she said per Pop Sugar.
Earlier this week, a letter, purportedly written by Will and Jada's daughter, Willow Smith, went viral, which saw her asking the late Shakur to come back to make her mother happy.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
