"Somebody said ‘Will competing with a ghost’": Jada Pinkett Smith shares throwback video with Tupac, sparks hilarious reactions online

On Wednesday, September 20, actress and talk show host Jada Pinkett Smith, rapper-actor Will Smith’s wife, took to her Instagram account to share a throwback video of her and late rapper Tupac Shakur lip-syncing and grooving to the lyrics of Parents Just Don’t Understand, when they were both teenagers.

A part of the caption of the Instagram post of Jada read as follows:

“Pac and I lip-syncing Parents Just Don’t Understand by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince during our Junior year in high school. Who would have thought?”

The hashtag #ourworthyJourney was also used at the end of the caption. What’s interesting is that Jada also mentioned how she never imagined that she would end up becoming so close to Fresh Prince, aka Will Smith, back when she and Tupac performed the song.

Netizens grabbed this opportunity to troll her. While some people stated how Jada and Tupac may have been more than friends, others hinted that Will Smith was now competing with a dead person. In this regard, one Instagram user commented on Pinkett Smith’s post, writing:

A netizen jokes about the fact that Will Smith is competing with Tupac Shakur's ghost. (Image via Instagram/nazgotlocss)

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Netizens have wild reactions to Jada Pinkett Smith’s Tupac throwback video

Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith shared a throwback video of her and late rapper Tupac Shakur on Instagram on Wednesday. In the video, the duo is seen lip-syncing and dancing to the 1988 Grammy-winning song, Parents Just Don’t Understand, by DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince aka Will Smith, who is now her husband.

In the post, Jada shared a brief excerpt from her upcoming memoir Worthy’s chapter, titled “Advanced Degree,” which seemed to give the footage some context. It read:

“Not in a million years would I have dreamed that the Fresh Prince and I would become, um, very acquainted. Not in a million years did I imagine three lives, their fates, would be so intertwined.”

She further continued by saying how she never thought that the video would become a “tangible memory” of the time when she and Tupac were “simply kids together” in their junior year in high school.

Previously, Pinkett Smith had stated how she attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where she met Tupac on the first day and the two went on to become friends until his untimely death in 1996.

In a different post a few hours later, Jada reposted the entire original video and wrote in the caption how Tupac and she did a “terrible job” at lip-syncing the then-hit rap number.

As soon as the two posts of Pinkett Smith became viral, netizens took the chance to make light of the situation, tagging her and Tupac Shakur as more than just friends, while also taking a jab at the Smiths' married life.

Here are some of the wild reactions online.

Here are some of the other hilarious reactions under the comment section of @ProducersHQ's tweet.

A netizen makes fun of Will. (Image via X/JAY)

A netizen ridicules Will and Jada's relationship. (Image via X/Gif Gawd DreamCon)

A netizen mocking Will's Oscar rage. (Image via X/DeJuan Tarver)

A netizen trolling both Will and his wife. (Image via X/Brooxx)

A netizen calls Mrs. Smith Gi Jane. (Image via X/Ushington)

A netizen makes fun of Pinkett Smith's teenage looks. (Image via X/Hey, Internet. Eric Here)

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The dynamic between Tupac Shakur and Jada Pinkett Smith

Although friends from high school, Pinkett Smith and Shakur drifted apart only to reunite years later on the sitcom A Different World in a 1993 episode, where she was a regular, and he appeared in a cameo. Later, she also appeared in the music videos of his rap numbers Keep Ya Head Up and Temptations.

Not only that but rumor has it that the lyrics and concept behind Tupac’s California Love was also developed by Pinkett Smith before she moved away from the venture.

As per reports from People, Jada also provided the bail amount worth $100,000 for Tupac in 1995 when he was charged with s*xual abuse. In fact, during an interview that same year, Tupac Shakur said that Pinkett Smith was his “heart” and would be his lifelong friend.

Years later, after his tragic death in September 1996 by a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Smith too had stated that Tupac was one of her closest friends and was like a brother.

It was a 2015 interview with Howard Stern where she revisited memory lane and said how she had never met a person like Tupac in her life. Pinkett Smith added that he had all the charisma of the world.

A 2017 biopic, titled All Eyez on Me, which was based on the life of Tupac Shakur also depicted his relationship with Pinkett Smith.