Tupac Shakur & Janet Jackson Were ‘Impressed’ With Each Other While Filming Poetic Justice

Tupac Shakur is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, having sold over 75 million records worldwide. Janet Jackson made her film debut alongside Tupac Shakur in John Singleton’s Poetic Justice in 1993. Tupac and Janet’s ‘Poetic Justice’ co-star Regina King recently revealed that their chemistry was evident.

The pop icon was married to director/songwriter René Elizondo Jr. at the time, whom she married in 1991. A Tribe Called Quest rapper Q-Tip was cast as Jackson’s boyfriend in the film. 2Pac was the one who made the biggest impression on the 27-year-old singer.

The chemistry between Jackson and 2Pac was palpable, according to Poetic Justice co-star Regina King, and simply couldn’t be ignored. The revelation was made by King in the Lifetime Television Network docuseries Janet Jackson, which premiered last month.

“Having Janet and 2Pac was huge because he was one of the biggest Hip Hop stars and she was definitely the biggest pop star. I think they were both impressed with each other, but I don’t feel like either one of them wanted to let the other know.”

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Toward the end of the film, 2Pac and Jackson must share a kiss, which appears to be a little too genuine.

“I don’t know if Janet will ever admit to it, but there was a bit of that chemistry going on. You could cut the air in the room at times. But she was in a relationship with René, make no mistake about it.”

2Pac joked on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1993 that having Elizondo on set made him want to kiss Jackson more. However, after the film was completed, Shakur claimed Jackson ghosted him by changing her phone number. Smooth B, who knew both 2Pac and Bobby Brown, told HipHopDX in a 2020 interview that she did the same thing to Brown.

“It bothered me, it probably wasn’t intentional, everybody changes their number. I really thought I made a friend, I thought it was, ‘I know Janet Jackson for life’ but as soon as the movie was over it was like ‘Boop, this number has been changed,’ It was like the day after the movie wrapped.”

And he was most likely correct. Jackson reflected on her time with the late Hip Hop legend in a 2018 interview, saying she “adored him so.”

“He was one way I think people saw him — and not to say that that wasn’t him, but he also had another side to him – he was fun and silly and he used to call me ‘Square’ all the time. He’d say, ‘What’s up Square?’ I guess because I’m very quiet and just sit back and watch and laugh, but there were times he was late for the set, and we were on time. We were waiting patiently and he’s back at his hotel and he’d say, ‘The longer you knock, the longer I’m going to sit in this bed.’”

“Honestly, I think he’s very special or he was very special, incredibly talented and definitely an icon. I remember when he got the ‘Thug Life’ tattoo when we were doing Poetic Justice. It was over the weekend and he said, ‘Hey Square.’ I said, ‘Yeah?’ And he lifted up his shirt. I said, ‘When did you get that?’ He said, ‘Over the weekend.’ He loved it though. For me, he wasn’t a diva. So much talent and so brilliant, just so smart.”

The Janet Jackson docuseries received 3.7 million video views across Lifetime and A&E’s on-demand platforms, bringing the total number of viewers to 15.7 million. Janet Jackson is currently available on-demand. To get the latest updates, keep an eye on Thirsty.

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