Many people were surprised when Madonna revealed on Wednesday’s Howard Stern Show that she once dated Tupac Shakur. But that’s old news to Rosie Perez, who explained on Thursday’s The View that she set up the two musicians.
Perez explained that Shakur took her to the 1993 Soul Train Awards after her original date stood her up.
Madonna Reveals She Dated Tupac Shakur & Much More on ‘Howard Stern’: Listen Now
Shakur happened to call her after the actress learned she was dateless and asked her why she was crying. As she tearfully explained that the guy she was supposed to go to the show with was a no-show, Shakur said he was on his way to rescue her.
Once they got to the Soul Train Awards, though, Perez said “every female artist there” was on top of her. “They kept going, ‘Hi, Rosie.’ ‘Hi.’ ‘Hi.'” Women who had never talked to her before.
“There were two girls, who shall remain nameless, who wanted to beat me up,” Perez added. “And I was telling Tupac, ‘Will you tell them I ain’t sleeping with you? We’re just friends.’ And he goes, ‘You can take ’em.'”
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But Madonna was interested in loving, not fighting.
“Madonna comes over, she looks at me, she goes, ‘Girl.’ I go, ‘I gotcha,'” Perez recalled, saying that she told Shakur Madonna wanted to meet him. “He goes, ‘Hook that up.'”
“I hooked it up, and I was very happy about it,” she said. Perez shared a version of the same story last year on the Wendy Williams Show.
On Stern’s show, Madonna said she was dating Shakur when she made her curse-filled David Letterman appearance in 1994. Her relationship with the late rapper came up when Stern asked her about her previous Late Show appearances and whether she actually liked Letterman.
She said when she made her F-word-filled appearance, she was dating Shakur.
“And the thing is he got me all riled up about life in general, so when I went on the show I was feeling very gangster,” she told Stern.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.