Haunting footage of Tupac talking about P Diddy’s involvement in a shooting two years before he was killed has resurfaced online.
The legendary rapper was shot five times during a robbery at Quad Studios in Times Square on November 30, 1994, and in an April 1995 interview with Vibe magazine, he claimed Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was the mastermind behind the set-up.
In footage from the interview, reposted last week by YayAreaNews on X, formerly Twitter, Tupac, who died aged 25 in September 1996, was asked: ‘Do you think Puffy was involved in the shoot?’
The hip hop star claims that ‘only they can answer that,’ adding that he had his own opinion but would not slander their name like they did his.
‘I believe so, I do believe so,’ Tupac said, while admitting ‘I have proved things that I can say that will back up my claim’ but that it was not for the world to know about.
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In resurfaced footage from a 1995 Vibe interview, Tupac Shakur spoke of his belief that Diddy played a role in a 1994 studio shooting that saw him shot five times
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Tupac Shakur was gunned down at the height of the East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry in the 1990s. He is pictured with Combs and his rap rival Biggie Smalls, aka, Christopher Wallace (right) and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (left)
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The rap legend, who died aged jut 25, is pictured with Combs at his birthday party in 1994 at Roseland Ballroom
‘It’s between me and him, and only he knows,’ he said.
Tupac had agreed to lend his talents to one of rapper Little Shawn’s tracks on the day of the shooting, but revealed he was having concerns about his safety before entering Quad Studios.
‘As we’re walking up to the building, somebody screamed from up the top of the studio,’ Tupac recounted to Vibe Magazine in the 1995 interview.
‘It was Little Caesar, Biggie’s sideman. That’s my homeboy. As soon as I saw him, all my concerns about the situation were relaxed,’ he said.
Feeling reassured, Tupac and his crew entered the building but as he approached the elevator, he noticed a group of men he assumed were affiliated with Biggie.
But things quickly took a dark turn when the rapper began to realize they were not Biggie’s security.
‘Even Biggie’s homeboys love me, why don’t they look up? I pressed the elevator button, turned around, and that’s when the dudes came out with the guns — two identical 9 mms,’ he recalled in the interview.
‘Don’t nobody move. Everybody on the floor. You know what time it is. Run your s***.’ I was, like, What should I do?’
Tupac was hit five times, and was left with severe injuries following the surprise gunning – including one that grazed his skull.
As the shooters fled the studio, the singer and his crew rushed upstairs via the elevator, but describing the moments that following the attack, Tupac said: I’m limping and everything, but I don’t feel nothing. It’s numb. When we got upstairs, I looked around, and it scared the s*** out of me’.
In an unsettling turn of events, Tupac said he found Combs, Biggie, and others in the studio, but their lack of reaction and shock made him question whether they had knowledge of the attack beforehand.
‘Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me,’ he shared, expressing his growing sense of betrayal.
‘Andre Harrell wouldn’t look at me. I had been going to dinner with him the last few days. He had invited me to the set of New York Undercover, telling me he was going to get me a job.
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Pictured: Tupac Shakur on August 15, 1996, a month before he was murdered
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This photo provided by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department shows the bullet-riddled car in which rapper Tupac Shakur was fatally shot in September 1996, in Las Vegas
‘Puffy was standing back too. I knew Puffy. He knew how much stuff I had done for Biggie before he came out,’ he said.
Years later, in 2008, as the allegations resurfaced, Combs repeatedly denied having any knowledge or involvement in the attack
The now-disgraced music mogul issued a strong statement rejecting the claims, saying: ‘The story is a lie, it is beyond ridiculous and completely false.
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‘Neither the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during, or after it has happened’.
Two years after the Quad Studios shooting, Tupac was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas after leaving a boxing match at the MGM Grand.
He was sitting in a black BMW sedan with Suge Knight, the head of his record label, when a white Cadillac pulled up alongside and a gunman opened fire, striking him multiple times.
He died from his injuries six days later.
Earlier this year it emerged that the former LA gang leader accused of murdering Tupac previously alleged that Combs offered him $1million to assassinate the rapper.
Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis is accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting that claimed the life of the rapper but he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Davis – the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired and the only person ever to be charged with a crime in the case – has been held in a Las Vegas jail since his arrest last September and has filed a request for reconsideration of bail.
Keefe D is arrested in connection with Tupac’s murder
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Davis told LAPD detectives in 2008 that Combs allegedly offered him $1million to murder Shakur (left) and Death Row Records boss Suge Knight (right)
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Combs was arrested a week ago in a sex-trafficking case accusing him of forcing women into ‘freak off’ orgies and presiding over a sordid criminal empire of sexual crimes
But Clark County prosecutors in July filed an opposition to the request, arguing that Davis should remain jailed because he previously implicated Combs in Tupac’s murder.
Citing a 2009 interview with Las Vegas police, prosecutors alleged Davis ‘suggested’ that Combs paid ‘Eric Von Martin a million dollars for the killings’ and ‘offered to set up a surreptitious phone call’ with driver Terrance Bown, according to the July 18 court filing which was obtained by Fox 5.
Combs, who was mentioned 77 times in the nearly 180-page court documents, has never been a suspect in Shakur’s killing. Law enforcement sources told TMZ at the time that he still was not considered a suspect in the case.
The resurfacing of the bombshell interview footage comes as Combs was arrested a week ago in a sex-trafficking case accusing him of forcing women into ‘freak off’ orgies and presiding over a sordid criminal empire of sexual crimes.
The disgraced musician was sensationally arrested at Park Hyatt Hotel in New York City and has since been charged with sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution – all of which he pleaded not guilty to in a Manhattan court on Tuesday.
The charges are tied to ‘freak offs’ – coerced sex acts that Combs allegedly orchestrated and recorded, according to a federal indictment.
In a desperate attempt to remain free, he begged for bail, proposing his own home and his mother’s as part of a $50million surety.
But Combs’ request was denied and he will remain in custody as it was revealed he could face more than two decades behind bars if found guilty of the charges.
