Pop Culture

Marlon Wayans Once Again Recalls Seeing 2Pac and Biggie Moments Before They Were Murdered

Wayans had interactions with the legendary rappers just 20 minutes before their tragic deaths.

Marlon Wayans once again recalled the time he saw both 2Pac and the Notorious B.I.G. shortly before they were killed.

The 52-year-old entertainer spoke on the subject when he made an appearance on the latest episode of Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast when it premiered on Wednesday.

Wayans discussed his close relationship with 2Pac at the 1:15:29 mark in the video linked above, saying he met the late rapper through mutual friends Omar Epps and Jada Pinkett Smith before they ended up working together on 1994’s Above the Rim.

He recounted how they hung out, shared laughs, and bonded over their similar backgrounds while describing their friend group as a “clique of performing arts, high school, ghetto kids.”

“We used to hang out and then we laughed a lot together. We used to walk around the streets of New York. We laughed a lot because Pac was silly,” he said.

“I remember I saw Pac was performing, he invited me down to Glam Slam and he's performing with Biggie. There's a picture with Tupac and Biggie, the only picture I think of them two together. And if you look in the corner, I'm sitting in the background twisting my hair,” he noted.

The story took a grim turn when Wayans revealed he saw the rapper at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas about 20 minutes before he was fatally shot in September 1996 at only 25 years old.

“We saw him, I seen Suge [Knight] and all these cars and thugs and reds,” Wayans recalled, saying the scene made him “turn white.” Eventually, Omar Epps convinced him to walk over to say hello to Pac, who had already become a huge star at the time.

He continued, “I go over there and give him a hug. We all talk, kick it for five minutes, and the BMW pulls up,” he added. “Me, Omar, and Mitchell [Marchand], we get in a cab and we pull off. I'll never forget the look on Tupac's face as we pulled off… It just, he looked like, ‘Man, I miss that freedom. I miss that fun.’ And he was just in this chaos.”

“We left and then 20 minutes later, we heard he got shot,” Wayans added.

Wayans then spoke about meeting Biggie outside of a party in Los Angeles the following year, just moments before he was killed in a drive-by shooting. The 24-year-old crossed paths with Wayans at the escalator and said he was a fan of the Wayans family and their work.

“So we're leaving the party, I see him again, dap him up. My brother Keenen's in the party with me, he gets in his car,” Wayans said, mentioning that they heard gun shots as they were driving away before later finding out it was Biggie who had been shot.

“I went to the hospital, saw Puff and all them outside. Mark Pitts, all those guys I knew, crying,” he noted.

“So 20 minutes after this interview, n***a, you might get shot,” Wayans joked.

“I ain't going nowhere. I ain't going to where they got no gun,” Sharpe quipped back before being called “55 Cent.”

Wayans had previously shared the story in a 2022 interview on the Late Late Show with James Corden and had also shared other stories about his friendship with Pac in separate interviews throughout the years.

After a public back-and-forth dispute with online interviewer DJ Vlad, who said Wayans was not worth the $40,000 interview price tag, the entertainer’s Club Shay Shay episode has reached 1.5 million views since Wednesday.

Wayans is also bringing his stand-up comedy routine to the U.S. with his Wild Child Tour through Nov. 22. For a full list of tour dates and tickets, visit marlonwayansofficial.com

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