Tupac’s humiliating intimate disfigurement revealed… and how his lies to cover it up led to his murder

by

Tupac Shakur felt uneasy when he arrived at the recording studio in Manhattan. He had a strange feeling something wasn’t right. His friend and sometimes-rival, Biggie Smalls (Christopher Wallace), was inside with their manager, Diddy (Sean Combs), but Tupac was disturbed by the soldiers standing guard outside.

Still, he was about to make $7,000, recording some lyrics for an up-and-coming rapper.

I’ll never forget when Tupac kept pushing forward that night. He had no idea stepping across that line would set off something huge in the music world. Honestly, the real story of what happened that night has always been shrouded in mystery, but finally, it’s being told accurately – and it’s incredible.

Oh my god, you guys, Jeff Pearlman just released the most incredible book about Tupac! It’s called ‘Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur,’ and it’s seriously a deep dive into everything. It starts with his really tough beginnings – growing up poor in New York and Baltimore – and then follows his whole journey to California where he blew up. But it doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff either, like his mom’s struggles with addiction and how that affected him. It’s just…everything you could ever want to know about Pac, honestly. I’ve already read it twice!

Pearlman explores the night at Quad Studios in November 1994 – near Times Square – that many believe ignited the intense rivalry between East Coast and West Coast rappers, a conflict that tragically led to the deaths of Tupac, Biggie Smalls, and numerous others connected to them.

In September 1996, Tupac was fatally shot at just 25 years old after leaving a concert in Las Vegas. His murder is still a mystery. Less than a year later, Biggie Smalls, also known as the Notorious B.I.G., was also killed, and no one has ever been convicted for his death either.

Tupac Shakur famously said he was shot five times in New York City in 1994, but according to Pearlman, the rapper actually accidentally shot himself, hitting his groin and injuring his testicle.

Paramedic Ron Johnson, who arrived at the scene, stated, ‘He shot himself.’ He was certain it wasn’t someone else, explaining that the man’s description of the shooting – the distance and the expected injuries – didn’t match the actual wounds. The man claimed he’d been shot, detailing how it happened, but the bullet’s trajectory through his leg and groin indicated he had actually shot himself while reaching for the gun.

As with much of the rapper’s life and death, fact has for years been hard to separate from fiction.

Around midnight, Tupac and three companions went to the famous recording studios at the direction of James Rosemond, a music manager and record executive also known as ‘Jimmy Henchman’.

In later interviews, Tupac shared that he felt uneasy in the recording studios and was startled to see armed, camouflage-wearing security guards. He didn’t have personal bodyguards yet, but he was carrying a Glock pistol tucked into his waistband.

When Tupac entered the building, a familiar rapper called out to him from the balcony, according to Pearlman. Tupac then took the elevator up to the eighth-floor studios.

Before the elevator doors could open, men dressed for tactical operations drew their 9mm handguns and commanded Tupac and his companions to lie on the floor.

The three men obeyed, but Tupac refused and tried to pull out his own Glock. He accidentally shot himself in the groin during the struggle.

During the robbery, the victim was shot twice. One bullet hit his hand, and another grazed his head. The robbers stole $40,000 worth of jewelry.

‘They were snatching my s*** off me while I was laying on the floor,’ he would later say.

According to Pearlman, the rapper, while at Bellevue Hospital, asked Dr. Charles Thorne if he would still be able to have children, saying, “Hey Doc, will I still have one testicle? Because I need to be able to have one.”

Tupac later said he was shot five times, but he never admitted that he had actually shot himself by accident.

The EMT, Johnson, was certain of what he saw. The man’s jeans had no bullet holes, and the gunpowder was only found on his underwear.

Yet the myth has lingered. And the fallout was extremely real.

While incarcerated in Rikers Island in April 1995 facing sexual assault charges, Tupac Shakur told a Vibe magazine reporter that he believed Biggie Smalls and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs were responsible for the shooting at Quad Studios.

He claimed he’d been shot five times and that people were trying to kill him, but this wasn’t true – he was misrepresenting what actually happened.

He said he was taken aback by the reactions of Biggie and Diddy, in the minutes after the shooting.

‘Nobody approached me,’ he told Vibe. ‘I noticed that nobody would look at me.’

Although no one was ever arrested for the shooting, it sparked a rivalry between West Coast hip-hop fans of Tupac and Suge Knight, who ran Tupac’s record label, Death Row Records, and East Coast artists like Biggie and Diddy.

The situation became much more serious after the shooting at the Quad,” explained rapper Spice 1. “It went beyond just being a rivalry.”

In a February 1995 rap, Biggie seemed to allude to the shooting at Quad Studios, asking ‘Who shot ya?’ and declaring he’d ‘separate the weak from the obsolete’.

In response, Tupac in June 1996 replied with ‘Hit Em Up’, mocking his East Coast rivals.

In his lyrics, he mocks Biggie, calling him a ‘soft’ person and referencing a time when Biggie stayed at his house, suggesting a power imbalance.

He continues: ‘Five shots couldn’t drop me; I took it and smiled.’

Three months after releasing the song, Tupac would be shot dead in Vegas.

Just under a year later, in March 1997, Biggie was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles.

In an interview shortly before his death, Tupac explained that the shooting at Quad Studios had deeply affected how he saw the world. While he later admitted to exaggerating the number of times he was shot, the experience had a significant and genuine impact on him.

He explained that no one ever helped him, they just stood by and watched. That’s why he felt the ‘Thug Life’ concept was over for him. If it still existed, he said, someone else should embody it, because he was exhausted from being its representative. He felt he was ‘Thug Life’ for too long.

Read More

2025-10-25 16:53