Will Smith says the way Jada Pinkett Smith 'loved' Tupac 'rendered me incapable of being friends with him'

• Will Smith spoke about being jealous of Jada Pinkett Smith's friendship with Tupac Shakur.
• "He triggered the perception of myself as a coward," Smith wrote in his new memoir.

Will Smith said that he was so jealous of Jada Pinkett Smith's love for Tupac Shakur that he was incapable of befriending the rapper.

"Though they were never intimate, their love for each other is legendary - they defined 'ride or die,'" Smith wrote of Pinkett Smith and Shakur in chapter 13 his self-titled memoir, released on Tuesday.

Smith met Pinkett Smith in the '90s. At the time, he was married to Sheree Zampino and the couple shared a son named Trey Smith. Upon speaking with Pinkett Smith at a lounge for hours, Smith knew that he was in a relationship with the wrong person.

He and Zampino divorced in 1995. Five days after Smith received the divorce papers, he called Pinkett Smith and they began quietly dating. The couple got married in December 1997.

In his memoir, Smith said that his "mind was tortured" by Pinkett Smith's close, platonic relationship with Shakur, who was her classmate at the Baltimore School for the Arts.

Smith described the late rapper as someone who was "fearless" and had "a willingness to fight and die for what he believed was right."

"He triggered the perception of myself as a coward," the "I Am Legend" star said. "I hated that I wasn't what he was in the world, and I suffered a raging jealousy: I wanted Jada to look at me like that."

"When Jada and I committed to each other, and the demands of our relationship made her less available to 'Pac, my immature mind took it as a twisted kind of victory," Smith added. "Jada was the paragon, the pinnacle, the queen of queens. If she chose me over Tupac, there was no way I could be a coward. I have rarely felt validated."

Smith, who was in his 20s at the time, said that he lacked the maturity to embrace Tupac as a friend.

"I was in a room with Tupac on multiple occasions, but I never spoke to him," the actor said. "The way Jada loved 'Pac rendered me incapable of being friends with him. I was too immature."

Smith shared similar comments about how he reacted to Pinkett Smith and Shakur's friendship during an interview with "The Breakfast Club" in 2020. The actor said that he was "deeply insecure" and that his jealousy was "a big regret."

Pinkett Smith reflected on her relationship with Shakur, who was shot to death in September 1996, during an episode of her Facebook Watch series "Red Table Talk."

"We were anchors for each other," Pinkett Smith said, referring to their dynamic as a "complex relationship."