Vonda introduced us (at a party), and Salli was totally cool with me. I let them inside and I guess this is the first time Tupac and Salli met each other. It occurred to me Tupac would probably like some privacy right about now. So I walked in the trailer and said, "Hey, Vonda, why don't you keep me company, I'm getting bored out here." The timing was perfect. Tupac had that look of mischief in his eye I knew so well.
Check this out, this was all going down around eleven A.M., but Salli didn't leave the trailer until somewhere around five P.M., so they were really getting into each other.
After she left, I went back in the trailer and this nigga's in there, jumping up and down, putting his hand all over his face, talkin' bout, "Nigga! Can you believe it?! Salli Richardson, the finest f-ckin' actress out there. Fine sista! I'm gonna f-ckin' hook that up."
I said to him, "Now, Pac, she's the kind of material to be your lady, not just somebody to be f-ckin' around with."
He said, "yeah, I know, huh? I should kick it on the real with her." "She's somebody you could put on your arm and go to an awards ceremony with," I said.
He agreed. Pac was sprung. He told me he was gonna hook up with her later that night, and from that day on, Salli was on the set. It got real hot and heavy between the two of them, and before you knew it, she was driving his green convertible Jaguar and kickin' at his Wilshire house.
Me and Kevin Hackie started making bets. "She's a fly-by-nighter," he said. "Bet she's not around even a month." I agreed. Knowing Pac, Kevin's estimate was generous. We all gave him the benefit of the doubt, though.
Usually, when Salli was in the trailer, I stayed outside the trailer, Vonda used to pop in occasionally and hang with them, and sometimes I would go inside and find Salli laying on top of Pac, with his shirt off. Salli usually wore something like a halter top, and she was definitely into him.
Vonda started telling me stories about Salli. "That's my girl, she's in a relationship with Ol' Boy..." She was referring to the dude who was related to Babyface. "I think he's just too soft for her and she wants a thug, she wants a hard nigga. I think her and Tupac's gonna get along really good."
From what I gathered from Vonda, Salli was really into Pac. She'd never been with anybody like him, and was down for a brotha who was so controversial, and the fact that he was a bad boy, a roughneck.
He must've felt the fever too, because one day he called up a Death Row employee named Roy and had him purchase a necklace for her, with a diamond heart locket. Probably cost him somewhere around $15,000- Pac didn't care about the price.
When the package showed up, I brought it into the trailer for her. She and Pac were in bed and I didn't see her response to the gift, but I sure heard it. When she came out of the trailer, she was wearing it, and she winked at me. She was beaming.
He and Salli continued making some noise of their own. She kept showing up everyday, following us to different locations, and when she took off one evening, I started messing with him. "You know I got the 411 from Vonda, nigga. What's up, what you gonna do?"
Pac said, "Man, she's fine, she's bad. I'm gonna kick it with her for a while."
I said, "A'ight, just treat her good if you want her around." No sooner than I said that, the relationship was over.
I was off for two days, and by the time I came back, Salli wasn't around anymore, but this girl who was supposedly his "housekeeper," and was staying with him at his new house in Calabasas, was around.
The first thing I noticed, was the convertible Jaguar was back on the set, but he wasn't-driving it. He'd bought himself a white Land Cruiser. I asked him how come he had two cars on the set.
"I took the Jag back from Salli," he said. "What happened?" I asked.
All he said was, "f-ck that bitch." End of story.
As quick as it started, it was over. Probably lasted only two weeks total. I tried to get the 411 from Vonda but she didn't know what went down-all she knew was Salli was at home, heartbroken. There was some "he said, she said" bullsh-t, and Pac cussed Salli out. Apparently, someone had spread a rumor that Pac asked Salli to marry him and that's what started the argument. Whatever Salli did say, had supposedly gotten back to Kidada Jones, who was going out with Pac at the time. Kidada's the daughter of Quincy Jones And Pac was seeing her.
When we were working on Gridlock'd, we had a lot of time to shoot the sh-t because we were sitting around for eight weeks. The funny thing about moviemaking is people think it's all excitement and action, but a lot of the time, you're just waiting around for scenes to be set up or for people to be called to the set.
We had eight weeks to spend together in the trailer, confined. Either we're gonna fight, f-ck, or not get along. Since it was me and Pac, obviously we weren't f-cking or fighting. We spent the downtime talking about things.
We were watching a talk show, and it was during Madonna's pregnancy, and they flashed a picture of Carlos Leon and Madonna walking into a New York building on the screen. Leon is the father of Madonna's baby girl Lourdes. Pac had just rolled a blunt and after he finished inhaling a big toke, he said, "You know, that used to be me."
I said, "Yeah, right, get the f-ck outta here," thinking he was just f-ckin' with me.
"Nigga, I'm serious, that was me," he said, and I could tell he was. "Lemme tell you something, anytime I tell you something about a bitch, it's for real."
I said, "A'ight. So what's up between you and ol' girl?" He said, "Nothing."
I said, "Did you know her, then?"
"Dude," he said, "I used to spend time with Madonna in New York." I said, "You did?" Damn, I'm thinking, this brotha does get around. That was the end of the conversation. He never mentioned her again, and I have no reason to believe he was lying.
Around that time, somebody popped in a copy of Jason's Lyric, and during the scene where Jada Pinkett's getting f-cked by ol' boy on the counter, I said to Pac, "Damn, she ain't got no ass."
He laughed and said, "That could have been my ass." I said, "What?!"" Yeah, way back in the day, she was in a couple of my videos."
I was trippin', looking at this fine b*tch and wondering what went down. "She was too far out there for me," he said.
Jada's with Will Smith right now. Lucky man.
Faith Evans
During the time Tupac was in prison, one of the thoughts that kept him going was the idea that when he got out, he was gonna f-ck Faith Evans, the wife of Notorious B.I.G. He told me, straight up: "The first thing I did when I got out of prison was I f-cked Faith. Every bitch I say I'm gonna f-ck, I f-ck em."
Adina Howard
Adina Howard, an R&B singer with a big, big bootie, came a-knockin' on the trailer one day. Leslie was on duty and he said to me, "You know who that is, right?" I said, "No. Who?"
"It's Adina Howard, she cut her hair."
It was really short and blonde at the time and I didn't recognize her. She walked into the trailer and I followed her.
"Oh, Pac, I didn't know you had company," I lied, because of course I saw that bootie walking in.
He introduced us and that was that, and I stepped out.
He never mentioned her again so I don't know what kind of relationship they had. But if you look at Pac's history, I wouldn't be surprised if they got busy on some level.
My alternate bodyguard was on duty on this particular Tuesday. This was during the time Tupac was still living in the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. As soon as I pulled up to valet, Tupac cruised up behind, me. "Big Frank!" he shouted. "Wassup?"
We greeted each other and he said, "Lees chill up in the room."
I said, "Cool." When I turned to look at who he was with, I thought, Damn, she looks familiar. I couldn't quite place the face, though.
Kevin walked over to me and said, "You know who that is, right?" I fessed up, and told him no. "Arnelle Simpson."
I said, "Get the f-ck out of here." This was during the height of the 0. J. trial and he may as well have said "Princess Di."
"We just came from the movies, and he was all over her," Kevin said. (Arnelle, who is a video stylist in the music industry, has said elsewhere that her meeting with Tupac that night was purely professional.)
When I showed up, I went to my room and I realized Pac wasn't going out. I wondered what was up, and I called down to his assistant, Kendrick, and asked what was up.
He said, "He's still with Arnelle." I asked if he was going to be doing anything or going out, and he said, "I don't think so."
Time went by, and he never called me to go out. So I just chilled for the rest of the night.
The next morning was when sh-t popped off. Pac called me and said, "We're ready to roll."
I went down to the lobby with my wife Lori, who always stayed with me when I was working at the Peninsula. Lori took one look and said, "That's Arnelle Simpson!"
We went over to the apartment complex in the Valley where the Outlaws lived, because Arnelle's 900 convertible SAAB was parked there. Why, I have no idea.
After Arnelle left, when we got into the Outlaws' stinky apartment, Pac started bragging to 'em. Everybody started rolling up blunts, and as they're smoking, Pac starts telling them all about Arnelle.
He was so excited. He was jumping up and down. "Arnelle Simpson. The baddest b*tch in L.A. right now, the finest sista!!! !"
He was so excited and so proud. Everybody started jumping up and down, and high-fivin' and screaming and sh-t. As I look back on that moment, I remember Tupac's excitement and how he started telling the Outlaws about a video he had in his head. It was gonna be like, "Murder Was the Case," Snoop's 20-minute video, and each of the Outlaws were going to have roles they played in it.
It hurts me so much to think back on that time and see that excited nigga, and remember the dreams he had that weren't fulfilled.
Several times when I was leaving Pac, after bringing him to his house or wherever he was staying at the time, Kidada Jones would be walking in as I was walking out. The first time I passed by her, was in an elevator. The door opened right when I was leaving, and she happened to be getting out as I was about to get in. I didn't know who she was, but I greeted her by saying, "Hi how are you?"
She walked right by me. I was only being polite. I wasn't in her face, I just offered her a simple greeting. She acted like I was invisible, and just walked right through the door. I'm not an easy man to miss, so I believed it was intentional. I walked in the elevator, and just kept on going, but it stuck with me. Rudeness at this level was something I hadn't encountered much.
The next time I saw her, I asked Pac, "Who is that?" He said, "Oh, that's Kidada." I said, "Who's Kidada?" .
He said, "Quincy Jones' daughter."
I said, "Oh, she's rude." Just like that, didn't think twice about telling him how I felt.
I spoke with Yaasmyn (a close friend of Tupac's mother whom he treated like an aunt and who ran one of his business enterprises) about her also, and Yaasmyn was very diplomatic. "She's just different, Frank," she said. "We have a hard time with her, too."
Until then, I was taking it personal. I didn't learn until later on she was like that with others. I didn't know what was going on, and I used to wonder, Why is that girl always mean to me? I figured out later she had some serious attitude, and she could take that and keep it somewhere else.
Nevertheless, Pac had his reasons for hanging out with the bitch. He knew Kidada Jones was the daughter of the most established black man in the entertainment industry. He had nothing but respect for Quincy.
I remember walking into work one day-again, this was while we were shooting Gridlock'd where a lot of the action took place-and he showed me a cassette collection that he said belonged to Quincy Jones. Tupac said he'd had dinner with Quincy and Kidada the night before at their house, and Quincy loaned the collection to Tupac-it was his entire collection of music he'd produced, from Michael Jackson on down. He had them in a big old satchel, and they were all in order by year, name, and category.
I said, "Pac, what s this?"
He said, "Ali nigga, that's Quincy's sh-t. I'm getting ready to hook up with Quincy, he's gonna do some sh-t for me." I asked him what he was talking about, and he said, "Movies, music you name it, I'm gonna have Quincy produce some sh-t for me." I said, "Are you serious?" I knew he was.
I said, "Nigga, you crazy..
He said, "Frank, Kidada's young, and I'm gonna train her." I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded.
This wasn't the only time he said some sh-t about Kidada. When we were in Italy, Michael Moore said to me, "Frank, what do you think Pac sees in Kidada?"
I told him, "I don't have a clue what he sees in her."
You have to know Kidada to understand where we were coming from. Pac was with so many beautiful, classy and cool women. He wasn't only hanging out with women who were just pretty, he had some exceptional women - I'd put Salli in that category.
Kidada didn't have such obvious qualities. She was only nineteen or twenty, and she had short hair. She kept complaining about her hair to her friend Carla, who worked for Vibe magazine and accompanied us on the trip.
On our way to the Versace fashion show, she was still moaning about her hair, and Tupac said, "Why don't you take that sh-t out your hair, then you won't have to complain about it, and I ain't got to hear it no more."
I don't know if she knew he was f-cking other women when he was with her. Others knew it, Carla knew it.
After his death, she told people she and Pac were engaged. He never said to me he was gonna get married, or he was thinking about getting married, or that he was engaged to Kidada. The only two people who know for sure are Pac and Kidada.
No matter how I look at it, Kidada left a bad taste in all our mouths. She treated us really bad. I'm sure growing up rich had something to do with it, but, to my mind, there is no excuse for being rude.
His "Wife," Keisha Morris
When you don't have sh-t, and you're a regular muthaf-cka off the street, if you get locked down, the first thing you do when you come out of prison is you brag about it. If you're an entertainer, like in the case of Rick James, James Brown, and Tupac, do you think they went around bragging about the time they were locked up in jail? No, they don't. The reason they want to forget about that sh-t is because they have careers. They have something that made them who they were. Prison didn't give them an identity. They already had one.
They don't talk about it and for the most part, real G's don't either. Anybody else who's been there, already knows what they've been through. So Tupac never discussed his jail time. Except one day, while we were talking in his trailer, somehow it came up that I'd been married three times.
"Damn, Pac," I said. "You ain't never gettin' married." "I was married," he said.
"You were?" "Yeah, to a friend of mine. She was real cool, I got married in prison so we could have s�x." With that marriage certificate, he was allowed to have conjugal visits. "That's why I got pissed when I'd hear muthaf-ckas talking about how I got raped in jail," he said, "because I ain't getting raped in no muthaf-ckin' jail, ain't no one steppin' to me trying to take my muthaf-ckin' manhood."
The marriage ended right as he was getting out of prison, and he took care of her.
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