In an excerpt from his new memoir, Will Smith says: "In the beginning of our relationship, my mind was tortured by their connection. He was ‘Pac and I was me."

Will Smith’s self-titled memoir continues to paint a picture of his private life, the latest details center around his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s relationship with Tupac. 

In Will, the actor candidly shares he felt insecure in the beginning stages of his relationship with Jada. This was due to the closeness between Jada and Tupac who’d met when they were both students at the Baltimore School of the Arts. Though their friendship was platonic, it still bothered Smith. 

He writes:

“Though they were never intimate, their love for each other is legendary — they define ‘ride or die’... In the beginning of our relationship, my mind was tortured by their connection. He was ‘Pac and I was me.”

He adds, “‘Pac was like Harry — he triggered the perception of myself as a coward.” Smith also shared, “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.”

Will went on to express that he felt a “twisted kind of victory” the less time Jada spent with Tupac as the couple’s relationship became more serious. “If she chose me over Tupac, there was no way I could be a coward,” he wrote. “I have rarely felt more validated. I was in a room with Tupac on multiple occasions, but I never spoke to him. The way Jada loved ‘Pac rendered me incapable of being friends with him. I was too immature.”