As some may know, actor Rosie Perez and Tupac were extremely close to each other. But Perez admitted that she saw a different side to her friend during his feud with Biggie Smalls. The conflict saw Tupac using Smalls’ own significant other against him. To Perez, it was a Tupac that she didn’t recognize.
Tupac Shakur impressed Rosie Perez by not hitting on her
Rosie Perez expressed feeling almost instant chemistry when she first met Tupac. One of the ways Tupac immediately stood out to Perez was in his approach. The late rapper didn’t flirt with Perez the way others might have. This already left an immediate impression on the White Men Can’t Jump alum.
“The first time I met him. That smile was wonderful, and he didn’t hit on me. I was so used to getting friggin’ hit on all the time in the music industry. And he didn’t. He’s like, ‘What’re you doing later?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘All right, I’m gonna come by your room,’” Perez told the New York Times.
Tupac would keep his word, and the two would spend that evening bonding with each other.
“We spent the whole day together,” she added. “He smoked out the room. I had a full-blown anxiety attack that we were going to get arrested, and he couldn’t stop laughing at me, and called me a cornball. I didn’t share my childhood with anybody, ever, and I shared it with him that day.”
Rosie Perez was surprised when Tupac used Faith Evans against Biggie Smalls during their feud
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Perez was surprised with some of the lengths Tupac would go to during his feud with Biggie Smalls. One moment that stood out to her, in particular, was when Tupac used Faith Evans against Biggie. Evans was in a relationship with Biggie at the time. Tupac would claim on the popular diss track “Hit ‘Em Up” that Evans had an affair with him. This surprised Perez, who didn’t recognize this side of Tupac.
“The irony with the beef between him and Biggie was Faith [Evans]. That wasn’t the guy I knew. He would’ve never used a woman as a weapon to get back at a dude,” Perez once told XXL. “And, I remember watching that like, ‘Oh my God. What the hell?’ That was weird. We talked then but we never spoke about that. He understood that I never wanted to participate in that pettiness… I can’t stand gossip.”
Although Tupac and Perez did converse a bit during this time period, she avoided conversation regarding Tupac’s drama.
“You talk about surface-y things. ‘Oh, did you hear…?’ and then you drop it. Leave it behind us and move on to politics. And that’s where we went. I didn’t even want to hear it. I thought the whole thing was stupid,” he said.
Rosie Perez once shared that she and Tupac drifted apart
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Despite how close they were, The Flight Attendant star acknowledged that she and Tupac did end up drifting a little apart. This was due to their busy schedules. But it was also partially the result of the artist Tupac was turning into.
“Where we see each other, we pick up where we left off. But, there was an angst that was prevalent before. That angst that was there in the early 90s was more about him needing to express himself. ‘I need the world to know who I am,’” she explained. “‘I have something to say. I wanna have fun.’ And what was pushing that was a lot of hurt.”
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