Jada Pinkett Smith – Age, What Was Her Relationship With Tupac?

Jada Pinkett Smith is a 53-year-old famous American author, dancer, singer, talk show host, producer, businesswoman, songwriter, and actress. She is also a well-known celebrity wife on account of her marriage to equally famous celebrity actor, Will Smith. The beautiful actress, who is 53 old, most recently became a hot topic of conversation following recent revelations regarding the nature of her relationship with late hip hop musician, Tupac Shakur.

Jada Pinkett Smith is in her 50s

Jada Pinkett Smith was born Jada Koren Pinkett on September 18, 1971, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Her birth sign is Virgo and she is an American citizen. She has an African-American ethnic heritage and a mix of Jamaican and Bajan bloodlines as a result of her mother’s background. Jada’s father, Robsoll Pinkett Jr. owned a construction company and married Jada’s mother, Adrienne Banfield-Jones now Adrienne Banfield-Norris, while they were both still in high school and after she had become pregnant with Jada.

The marriage lasted for just a few months before they divorced. Jada was essentially raised by her mother and grandmother, Marion Martin Banfield, who worked as a social worker while Jada was growing up, in Baltimore. Jada’s mother’s primary source of income was as head nurse of a Baltimore inner-city clinic.

Though she is the only child born by her parents, the actress has a younger half-brother, Caleeb Pinkett, who is also an actor. Caleeb grew up in Orange County, North Carolina, but that didn’t stop Jada from having a relationship with him. In fact, they bonded over their mutual dislike and hatred of a father who was a drug addict and didn’t do much to support his children. Jada lost her father to drug abuse in February 2010 when he was 57 years old.

She is a Baltimore School of the Arts alum

Jada’s educational background revolves around the fact that her grandmother discovered her artistic abilities and was responsible for making sure those skills were honed by enrolling Jada in ballet, tap dance, and piano lessons.

After high school, Jada attended the Baltimore School of the Arts from where she graduated with a degree in Theatre and Dance in 1989. She spent the next year after graduation further developing herself at the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Jada Pinkett Smith began her career in 1990

Jada left home for Los Angeles after school and initially lived with a family friend named LaVern Whitt. He was instrumental in Jada meeting the right people and establishing the right connections for the growth of her career. Jada began as Lena James in A Different World and that was just number one on what has become a credit-laden career.

She has made starring appearances in movies such as Set It Off, Menace II Society, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolution, Bad Moms, Magic Mike, Girls Trip, Angel Has Fallen and The Matrix Resurrections to name a few. She also was a prominent feature in several TV series, including 21 jump Street, Moe’s World, Gotham, True Colors, and The Equalizer.

The actress has accomplished so much over the course of a career that has exceeded 30 years and which includes stints in the music world, where she worked as a songwriter, and singer and even formed a band. She also has a children’s book credited to her and appeared in some of Tupac’s dance videos. All her artistic endeavors have served to help her amass a net worth of an estimated $50 million.

Did Tupac and Jada Smith have a relationship?

This has been a rather prominent question that has trailed the actress, partly because of the way she describes it and her husband’s most recent revelations in his book. However, Jada has consistently maintained that she and the late Tupac Shakur were nothing more than close friends. In fact, the way their relationship began and panned out speaks to the depth of feelings that Jada and Tupac shared.

Jada Pinkett Smith met Tupac in school

Jada and Tupac met as teenagers when they both attended the Baltimore School of the Arts. Whether by fate or design, the pair of old friends found themselves as classmates, and pretty much soon they became inseparable as friends. Jada admits that the connection they shared as friends was one neither of them least expected. She claims that the late musician was, in her very own words, funny-looking while they were in school but that his presence, once given full attention, had a magnetic influence on her. Their chemistry was such that people even assumed they were intimate because of how close they were.

Jada Smith shared a kiss with Tupac

The level of unspoken connection and the deep chemistry that existed between the two friends was so much that they decided at one point in their relationship to at least give it a go just to see if there was more to their relationship than being friends. Jada convinced Tupac to kiss her and it turned out to be nothing like they had imagined. It was a move that effectively confirmed what both of them somehow knew about each other and about the dynamics of their relationship, they were going to be just friends and so it remained.

Jada Smith was dealing drugs when she first met Tupac Shakur

Jada has never claimed to be above fault. In fact, the actress revealed in an interview that she was deep in her life as a drug dealer when she met the late rapper. However, she also stated that it was one of the things that bonded her to Tupac who was also involved in the drug trade. Jada has stated that the drug thing was a means of survival for both her and the rapper who also grew up in one of the roughest places in the 1980s/1990s America.

However, Jada has pointed out that she was on her way out of that life as a result of the experiences she was starting to notice around her. In fact, she eventually got out only for Tupac to delve deeper into it. A life that landed him in prison a year before his tragic demise.

Jada Smith fell out with Tupac just before he was shot dead

Jada has revealed that one of the things that hurt her the most about the tragic killing of Tupac was the position in which their friendship was right before he died. The pair had had a lot of falling outs, especially because of Jada’s frequent and rather consistent prodding of Tupac to leave the life of drugs and gun violence. In fact, the pair had already fallen out before Shakur went to prison in 1995.

When he came out, they reconnected briefly before another heavy argument ensued and before they could sort things out, Tupac had to leave for another destination in a hurry and that was the last time Jada saw him alive. The actress has revealed that she went through all five stages of grief, including expressing anger at the late rapper for dying and leaving her frustrated.

Jada Smith’s husband was jealous of her relationship with Tupac

Jada’s husband, Will Smith revealed in his book and also in an interview that he was extremely jealous of the closeness and the bond his wife shared with the late rapper. He clearly pointed out that while he understood that it had to do with the fact that they grew up together and had a wealth of shared experiences between them, he still couldn’t help but feel the pangs of jealousy that erupted through him whenever he saw them together.

Of course, he knew and believed that they were never romantically involved; he couldn’t also shake the possibility that something might happen because they were no more kids. In his book Will, the famous actor recalls that in the early stages of his relationship with Jada, he so desperately wished that the actress would look at him the way she looked at the late rapper.

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Why is Will mad at Chris over Jada?

Following the events that occurred at the 2022 Oscars, where Will Smith got up on stage to, in the comedian’s words, smack the hell out of actor and comedian Chris Rock, a lot of netizens have wondered why Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith’s husband, was so pissed at Chris that he had to slap him in front of thousands of people in the audience over what had seemed like a joke.

To really understand the full concept of Will’s angry reaction towards the joke made by Chris Rock, one would dial back to 2018 when Jada revealed that she was diagnosed with alopecia, a rare genetic condition that causes one to lose their hair. Fast forward to 2022 and subsequently the Oscars and we see a Jada who has lost all her hair and attended the Oscars bald. Despite having a difficult time with her health challenge, she was there to support her husband who would later win the Best Actor award for his role in the movie King Richard.

Chris had made a joke in relation to a movie, GI Jane when he told the actress that he couldn’t wait to see her in GI Jane 2. His joke referenced her bald hair which was similar to actress Demi Moore’s look after she had to go bald to play the part. Jada clearly didn’t find the joke funny and she rolled her eyes to show exactly what she thought of the joke.

That was the last straw for Will Smith who felt that his wife had been through enough and didn’t deserve to be the butt of some joke that showed such poor form on the part of Chris Rock. He promptly got up from his seat to do something about it but no one saw his reaction to the joke coming. He went straight up to the podium and slapped Chris Rock right across the face, returned to his seat, and warned the comedian to keep Jada’s name out of his mouth.

Will has since apologized for his actions at the Oscars, but his actions, or rather, reactions to his wife being made fun of showed support to a woman who has most definitely been through a very tough time and didn’t want more emotional troubles piled on her already fragile heart.