Marlon Wayans showed up on ESPN's Numbers Never Lie series hosted by Michael Smith and Jemele Hill to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the 1994 film "Above The Rim" which found Wayans co-starring with the late 2pac. Wayans, who saw 2pac an hour before his untimely death, reflected on his time spent with Pac.
“Me and Pac had a great relationship,” Wayans said. “You know what was great about Pac? Everybody think he was this thug, this gangster. First of all, he was a performance high school kid. Pac was very smart and he was very silly. He was a clown," says Wayans. "He wasn’t real gangster but he acted gangster. He was a method actor, so he went a little too far. He was like, ‘Oh, I’ll shoot you!’ Pow! He’d really shoot you. He’d overcommit. I could tell he wasn’t a gangster because he had the softest hands. No gangster has hands [like that], I call him a Palmolive thug. He’d be like, ‘Come here, you want some of this,’ and then he’d give you this gentle hand. It was soft. Then he had these long eyelashes looking like [Mr.] Snuffleupagus, just like, ‘You don’t want none of this. I’m thug!’"
Pac, of course, was murdered not too long after the film wrapped. But where does Marlon Wayans see 2pac if he was alive today?
“I think he would have matured at this point to be the leader that I think this generation could use in a lot of ways because he was that,” Wayans said, once again making reference to Pac's gangster persona. “I think Pac was about to come to his come-to-Jesus moment where he actually became the philanthropist and the teacher that he honestly could have and should have been. He was an amazing dude. He was a well-rounded dude. He’s missed. And he was silly. We had a lot of fun. We laughed a lot.”
Interestingly enough, Wayans was with Biggie and Pac each an hour before their respective untimely demises. However, Wayans remembers when the two legendary rivals had a different relationship.
“I saw Biggie and Pac perform together,” Wayans said. “But before that. Okay, so Pac, the night he died, I saw him. Me and Omar Epps who I went to school with...I was with them. I was with my best friends. So we saw 'Pac standing outside of the Luxor. So we went on over to say what’s up and Suge [Knight] was there. Omar was like, ‘Yo I’m gonna go say what’s up.’ I was like, ‘Hey Pac!’ from far away. I was like, ‘Mmhmm.’ He had all these thugs with him. So we went over, shook his hand, said, ‘What’s up,’ gave him love. We got in a cab, went off. Pac looked at us, and then he went in the car that he wound up getting shot."
Sounds like Wayan and Pac were close, but do you believe his claims that the whole "gangster image" Pac was renowned for was all just a front? Share with us your thoughts!
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