You wouldn’t think that Madonna would need any help making a love connection, especially back in her heyday. But according to Rosie Perez, she’s the reason that the Queen of Pop ended up having a romance with one of the most influential rappers of all time.
When Perez appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show on Nov. 6, she related a story of how, just half an hour before she was due to leave for the Soul Train Music Awards, her date bailed on her. She was furious, so when her friend Tupac Shakur called minutes later, she told him what was going on.
“And he said, ‘You know what, 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,‘” Perez recalls Tupac telling her. Then, at the awards show, Madonna approached her and asked if she and Tupac were an item.
“She was there and she came up to me and she was like, ‘Yo, what’s up? Y’all are together?'” Perez told Barrymore. “And I said, ‘No.’ She goes, ‘Really?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ She goes, ‘Hook me up.’ I said, ‘You got it.'”
Madonna and Tupac ended up secretly dating from 1993 to 1994. They broke up, but while Tupac was in prison in 1995 he wrote Madonna a letter apologizing for their split. He was released from prison in October 1995, but was murdered a year later. He was 25.
You can watch the clip of Perez telling the story on EW.com.
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