Jada Pinkett Smith: ‘2Pac biopic outburst was about more than just the film’

Jada Pinkett Smith was suffering from an “existential crisis” when she slammed filmmakers behind the Tupac Shakur biopic online.
The Matrix Reloaded star, who was a close friend of the tragic rap icon, took to Twitter upon the release of All Eyez On Me last month (Jun17) and made it clear she did not approve of the way their “precious” relationship had been portrayed onscreen.
Pointing out numerous inaccuracies, Jada declared the “reimagining of my relationship to ‘Pac” was “deeply hurtful”.
The actress has since had time to reflect on her public criticisms of the film, which starred Demetrius Shipp, Jr. and Kat Graham as Shakur and Pinkett Smith, respectively, and now she admits her outburst was more to do with her own struggle to accept Tupac’s death than any real anger towards director Benny Boom and his fellow filmmakers.
“I have been having kind of an existential crisis…,” Jada confessed on U.S. breakfast show Today. “I’d gone to Atlanta, I had this whole meltdown about All Eyez On Me and the filmmakers, and I had an ‘Aha!’ moment about two days ago, realising that I’m not mad at the filmmakers, me and God were having an issue (sic).”
Will Smith’s wife explains that for so long, she had been trying to understand why she had been given a second chance at life after falling into the wrong crowd as a youth and becoming a drug dealer, while Shakur’s legacy had been cut short at the age of 25, after he was targeted in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996.
“I was saved, and I made it, and he didn’t,” she continued. “I often question, how can that be? How can that happen? How can two people have these parallel lives, one makes it and one doesn’t?”
Jada now realises she can no longer beat herself up over the tragedy, because she ultimately had no control over his fate.
She added, “I have to let it go. I have to have peace with what ‘Pac’s fate is, what his destiny is, and it’s not up to me to fix anything. I had to really look at my life and come to peace with, ‘Hey, some of us make it and some of us don’t, and that’s OK ’cause we all have a role to play.'”
Jada’s comments emerged a day after she appeared on U.S. talk show Watch What Happens Live! on Thursday (20Jul17) and defended her criticisms about All Eyez On Me, insisting a little extra research would have helped filmmakers “really show the world who Tupac truly was”.