Sapphic rapper and actor Queen Latifah recently recalled that she took iconic ‘90s rapper Tupac to a gay club in San Francisco. During an appearance on Hot Ones–a YouTube series where celeb guests are interviewed while eating super spicy chicken wings–that the crowd “went crazy” for Pac.
“Me and 2Pac were pretty much labelmates,” Queen Latifah said. “I was signed to Tommy Boy Records. Digital Underground was signed to Tommy Boy Records. Initially, I took Treach on the road as my roadie. Treach went on to head Naughty By Nature and 2Pac was pretty much a roadie with Digital. And he became a rapper in the group and made up the Humpty Dance, and they made the song ‘The Humpty Dance,’ which 2Pac created the dance to and it became a smash hit.”
Queen Latifah and Tupac ran in the same circles and were pretty close. “We toured together, so we went all across the county,” she continued.
She invited him to a New Year’s Eve celebration at the gay club. “I was in San Francisco doing a show. It was my first show over $10,000, which was a New Year’s Eve show at this cool gay club in San Francisco. I was like, ‘Yo I’m here!’ So 2Pac came to club with me. I was like, ‘Yo, 2Pac is in the building!’
“They went crazy in there! I was like, ‘They’re gonna tear you out your clothes!’”
“He took his shirt off anywhere,” she said. “We had so much fun.”
After years of media speculation, Queen Latifah publicly came out while accepting her BET Lifetime Achievement Award in Pride Month, 2021. During her acceptance speech, Latifah mentioned her decade-long partner Eboni Nichols, as well as their son, Rebel, whom the couple welcomed in 2019.
Prior to coming out, Latifah preferred to keep her sexual orientation hush-hush: “I don’t have a problem discussing the topic of somebody being gay, but I do have a problem discussing my personal life,” Queen Latifah said to the New York Times in 2008.
While Queen Latifah has been notoriously protective of her personal life, she described Tupac as part of it: he was “like a brother.”
“He was the type of person… if he loved you, if he was cool with you, he’d lay his life down for you. So, I miss him, and I love him. Good times!”
