Rosie Perez recently opened up about her role in bringing pop icon Madonna and rap legend Tupac Shakur together on “The Drew Barrymore Show.”
In a recent appearance before the media, the actress opened up about the unexpected couple formed more than 30 years ago.
Speaking candidly in an interview, Perez said the date for her 7th annual Soul Train Music Awards in 1993 fell through at the last minute. Perez even received a call from her date 30 minutes before the event apologizing that he couldn’t go because his girlfriend would find out about him.
“And I put the phone down and thought, ‘What am I going to do?’” Perez said. “Oh, then Tupac called me and said, ‘You can come with me. We’ll walk in there — we’ll pretend like we’re on a date and he’ll die.”
At the awards show, Perez ran into Madonna, who asked if she and Tupac were dating. Madonna told him they were just friends but expressed a desire to meet Tupac.
“I said, ‘You got it!'” Perez recalls. And as they say, that’s how the story begins.
Madonna, 66, and Tupac Shakur – who died in 1996 at the age of 25 – had a brief relationship that lasted nearly two years before they split in January 1995.
Although the couple largely kept things private, Madonna found out how much Shakur wanted to date her in a letter he wrote on January 15, 1995, according to ABC News.
Shakur added in the letter that being photographed with a black man would “damage” Madonna’s career and explained the double standard.
He wrote: “Your being seen with a black man will not jeopardize your career in any way; If anything, it will make you seem much more open and interesting.” However, he expressed concern about his image as fans were always quick to criticize.
According to a Vogue report, the letter was written while he was at Clinton Correctional Facility.
Madonna was 34 and Tupac was 21 when they fell in love in the early 1990s.
Madonna card