Jada Pinkett Smith has reacted to the recent arrest of Tupac Shakur’s alleged murderer, Duane Davis, saying that for justice to feel complete, she needs to know “who called the hit”.
Nearly three decades after the rapper’s fatal killing in a drive-by shooting in 1996, Las Vegas Metro police arrested and indicted Davis on 29 September. Prosecutors claim that while he wasn’t the gunman, he was the “ringleader” who ordered Shakur’s death.
Nevada law states that you can be charged with a crime – including murder – if you aid in committing the crime.
Follow The Independent’s live blog of Davis’s arraignment here.
In a recent Q&A with InStyle magazine to promote her new memoir, Worthy, Pinkett Smith, 52, said she wouldn’t feel complete justice had been served unless she knew “who called the hit” on her childhood friend.
“My biggest question is: Who called the hit? And so I know that someone’s been arrested, but I need that answered for me to really feel like justice in its completeness is being served. Who called the hit?”
When the interviewer noted that the arrest was “hopefully a step in the right direction”, Pinkett Smith agreed: “That’s what I was happy about.
“Hopefully we’ll get the answers that can bring us some closure and that’s what I’m really hoping for. We’ll see.”
Davis, who investigators have long identified as one of the four suspects in Shakur’s death, was arrested and charged with murder with use of a deadly weapon in the killing of the renowned rapper on the Las Vegas strip.
Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur— (Getty Images)
Prosecutors then appeared in court where they described Davis as the “on-ground, on-site commander” who “ordered the death” of Shakur.
In an interview with RollingOut last week, Pinkett Smith called Shakur her “soulmate”, revealing that he had proposed to her from prison.
The “Changes” rapper served eight months in prison in 1995 on sexual abuse charges, but was released pending an appeal of his conviction. He was bailed out by Suge Knight, the co-founder of Death Row Records.
Pinkett Smith said she used to visit him throughout his prison sentence and that during one of her visits, he asked her to marry him.
“When he asked me to get married, I knew at that time that he needed somebody to do time with him – which I was going to do anyway. You ain’t have to marry me to do time, I’m here,” Pinkett Smith said.
She said she viewed the proposal as Shakur looking for a support system, and not because he loved her or wanted to get married. “I think that for him, he just felt like: ‘OK, if I can tether myself, it’ll keep me on a trajectory,’” she said, noting that the marriage proposal wouldn’t have amounted to anything at the end of the day.
“Because of our friendship and because of everything we have been through together, he just wanted to feel that solidified foundation, you know?” Pinkett Smith explained. “Because I promise you, he would have married and divorced me as soon as his a** left jail.”
Worthy is out now.
