Jada Pinkett Smith Shares Clip of Her and Tupac Doing a ‘Terrible Job’ Lip-Syncing to a Will Smith Song

Pinkett Smith explained that the “tangible memory" marked "the last time Pac and I were simply kids together"

Jada Pinkett Smith, Tupac, Will Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith (left), Tupac Shakur (center) and Will Smith (right). Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images; Raymond Boyd/Getty Images; Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Jada Pinkett Smith’s newest preview for her upcoming memoir included a memory with the late Tupac Shakur, dancing to a song by her future husband Will Smith, “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”

Pinkett Smith, 52, published a brief excerpt from her upcoming memoir Worthy on Instagram in which she wrote about the moment when she, Shakur, and Smith, 54, collided.

She included a video of herself and Shakur dancing to the 1988 Grammy-winning hit Smith scored as one-half of the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.

“Not in a million years would I have dreamed that the Fresh Prince and I would become, um, very acquainted,” Pinkett Smith wrote. “Not in a million years did I imagine three lives, their fates, would be so intertwined.”

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The video became a “tangible memory, of the last time Pac and I, were simply kids together,” she wrote. “Pac and I lip syncing Parents Just Don’t Understand by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince during our Junior year in high school. Who would have thought?”

Pinkett Smith later shared the full video on Instagram. "Here is part of the original video of Pac and I doing a terrible job at lip syncing Parents Just Don’t Understand," she captioned the second post.

Pinkett Smith and Shakur, who was killed in September 1996, attended the Baltimore School for the Arts in Maryland as teens. They quickly became friends and their relationship was depicted in the 2017 biopic All Eyez on Me, with Demetrius Shipp Jr. as Shakur and Kat Graham as Pinkett Smith.

In a 2015 interview with Howard Stern, Pinkett Smith recalled how she “never in my life met a person like Pac,” adding that Shakur had “so much charisma.” 

Tupac Shakur; Jada Pinkett Smith
Tupac Shakur (left) and Jada Pinkett Smith (right). Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images; Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images

“You know, it’s so funny because now being older, I have more of an understanding of what that was between us,” Pinkett Smith told Stern, 69, when explaining how their relationship never turned romantic. “When you have two young people that have very strong feelings, but there was no physical chemistry between us at all, and it wasn’t even just for me – it was him too.”

The Red Table Talk host believed the “higher power just did not want that,” telling Stern, “We might have killed each other because we were both so passionate and we love deeply.”

In June 2021, Pinkett Smith marked what would have been Shakur’s 50th birthday by sharing a never-before-seen poem he wrote titled “Lost Soulz.” 

Worthy is scheduled to be released on Oct. 17, the day after Pinkett Smith begins a book tour in New York. 

“I had so many people encourage me to write a book,” Pinkett Smith told PEOPLE when announcing the book in June. “But I was believing that my journey was not a worthy journey. But when I saw it on paper — I couldn’t help but look at myself and say, wow. What a life."

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