Appearing on The Breakfast Club directed Allen Hughes detailed the reason why Tupac Shakur was eventually fired from Menace 2 Society.
Tupac was continuing his momentum as a top movie actor. With Juice and Poetic Justice under his belt, Shakur was ready to appear in Hughes brothers upcoming film Menace II Society. Tupac and the Hughes brothers had already formed a friendship and worked together on various Tupac music videos.
Unfortunately Tupac’s role of a Muslim character did not sit well with him, as he felt the direction of the character did not fall in line with realistic beliefs. “I ain’t gonna play no gang banger who is Muslim. There is no such thing. I refuse to play parts that don’t exist,” said Tupac during a rare 1993 interview.
Allen Hughes decided to part ways with Tupac and explained why when appearing on The Breakfast Club.
“We had to eventually fire him from Menace; he was becoming a handful. It was starting before Menace and I tried to work it out with him, but in my opinion he was not being reasonable,” explained Allen on The Breakfast Club. “It was in pre-production, so we were in rehearsals where we had several little blow outs. Well he told me to call his manager. I called his manager. His manager is like, ‘Tupac this and Tupac that.’ Let me talk to Tupac. I called Tupac. He’s like, ‘I’m not talking to you. Talk to my manager.’ I was like there is no way this… we can’t do this Tupac. If I can’t talk to you I might have to let you go.'”
According to Hughes Tupac insisted for him to call his manager. The next day Hughes reached out to New Line Cinema and said, “We’re gonna have to let him go.” Hughes claims he did not want to fire Tupac and would had preferred to work things out.
Despite Tupac not being part of the movie, Hughes noted that Tupac was to thank for the moving being “green lit.” “They wouldn’t green light it unless we had someone that was a platinum artist. Tupac as a friend signed it early and helped us with the film,” said Allen Hughes.
After the firing of Tupac, Allen Hughes was jumped during Spice-1‘s “Trigger Gots No Heart” music video. Initially Hughes waned to talk things out one-on-one with Tupac, but was denied, leaving the director to take things to court. Tupac bragging about the beat down during the iconic Yo! MTV Raps interview helped Hughes win the case against Tupac.
Now more than 30 years later, FX is set to release the Allen Hughes directed docuseries, Dear Mama, a deeply personal five-part series that defies the conventions of traditional documentary storytelling to share an illuminating saga of mother and son, Afeni and Tupac Shakur.
FX’s Dear Mama is set to premiere on FX, April 21, 2023 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. The premiere includes two episodes of the 5-part series with the series concluding on May 12th, two days before Mother’s Day.
