Rosie Perez revealed she was the matchmaker responsible for setting up her ‘good friend’ Tupac Shakur with Madonna while appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show.
Three decades after the Queen of Pop, 66, and the late rap icon, who was tragically murdered at age 25 in 1996, secretly dated, Perez, 60, divulged how they met while he attended the 7th Annual Soul Train Music Awards in 1993 as her date.
Perez revealed that Shakur sweetly offered to accompany her to the event after her date bailed on her a ‘half an hour’ before she was set to leave for the award show.
‘I didn’t know that you back in the day were like such good friends with Tupac Shakur. Do I have a story correct? Something about a date to a thing?’ Barrymore asked.
Perez proceeded to recall how her intended date called her and told her: ‘I can’t go with you because my girlfriend will see me.’
Rosie Perez revealed she was the matchmaker responsible for setting up her ‘good friend’ Tupac Shakur and Madonna while appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show; seen in 1993
After ‘laying out that truth’ and hanging up on her original date, she said her phone began to ring ang it was Shakur, who said: ‘I’m gonna go with you. We’re gonna walk up in there, we’re gonna act like we’re on a date and he’s going to die.’
Ultimately, Perez said she ran into Madonna, who asked if they were a couple.
After explaining they weren’t, she says the Material Girl hitmaker asked her to ‘hook’ them up.
Perez, replied: ‘You got it!’
Although they kept their relationship largely out of the spotlight, Shakur and Madonna reportedly dated on and off for nearly two years, until calling it quits in January 1995.
In 2017, a letter written by Shakur to the singer, which was dated Jan. 15, 1995, revealed why he broke up with her.
‘For you to be seen with a black man wouldn’t in any way jeopardize your career, if anything it would make you seem that much more open and exciting. But for me, at least in my previous perception, I felt due to my “image” I would be letting down half of the people who made me what I thought I was,’ he allegedly wrote, according to ABC News.
He continued: ‘I never meant to hurt you.’
Three decades after the Queen of Pop, 66, and the late rap icon, who was tragically murdered at age 25 in 1996, secretly dated, Perez, 60, divulged how they met while he attended the 7th Annual Soul Train Music Awards in 1993 as her date
Although they kept their relationship largely out of the spotlight, Shakur and Madonna reportedly dated on and off for nearly two years, until calling it quits in January 1995 (seen in 1994)
Elsewhere in the three-page letter, Shakur wrote: ‘An interview where you said ‘I’m off to rehabilitate all the rappers & basketball players’ or something to that effect … cut me deep … I had never known you to be with any rapper besides myself.’
He also apologized for not being the kind of friend that he’s ‘capable of being.’
‘Please understand my previous position as that of a young man with limited experience with [an] extremely famous sex symbol,’ he said.
‘I don’t know how you feel about visiting me but if you could find it in your heart I would love to speak face to face with you,’ he concluded.
Perez recalled that Madonna asked her to ‘hook’ them up, which she did
According to Vogue, the letter was written during his stint at the Clinton Correctional Facility.
Madonna was 34 and Tupac was 21 when they dated in the early 1990s.
