Madonna dumped by rap legend Tupac for being white
SHE was already a sex symbol admired by men around the world. But when Madonna dated the late rapper Tupac Shakur back in the 1990s, he wasn’t quite as appreciative of her appearance.
The troubled hip-hop star dumped the singer because she was white – which he felt was hurting his image.
Tupac, then 23 and 13 years younger than Madonna, wrote to her following their break-up, when he was in prison after being convicted of a sexual assault.
‘For you to be seen with a black man wouldn’t jeopardise your career. But for me, I felt due to my “image” I would be letting down half of the people who made me what I thought I was,’ he wrote in the letter dated January 15, 1995.
He would be killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas just over a year later. Tupac, whose parents were in protest group the Black Panthers, apologised to Madonna, then 36, for his behaviour as ‘a young man with limited experience with an extremely famous sex symbol’. He also referred to an interview in which he claims Madonna said ‘ I’m off to rehabilitate all the rappers and basketball players’.
He added: ‘Those words cut me deep seeing how I had never known you to be with any rappers besides me.’ The letter is expected to fetch more than £100,000 at auction later this month.
A biopic about Tupac, who sold more than 75million records, is currently being shown in cinemas.