Janet Jackson refused ‘Poetic Justice’ kiss until Tupac got HIV test
Janet Jackson wanted the late Tupac Shakur to get tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, before the kiss she and the “town cat” filmed for 1992’s “Poetic Justice.”
The “Rhythm Nation” pop star, now 59, asked producer Steve Nicolaides to make the sensitive request, according to a Hollywood Reporter excerpt published in Jeff Pearlman’s “Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur,” out Tuesday.
“You know, Tupac’s reputation is that he’s a cat about town,” the Grammy winner reportedly said. “And I don’t want to exchange saliva with him until I’m really sure he’s healthy and clean.”
Although the HIV virus can be contracted through bodily fluids, including blood, semen, breast milk, rectal or vaginal fluids, it cannot be spread through saliva.
Jackson said at the time that she called on Nicolaides after director John Singleton “walked away when I brought it up.”
Nicolaides — whose credits include “When Harry Met Sally,” “Boyz n the Hood” and “A Few Good Men” — did as he was asked, to which Shakur reportedly said, “Fuck her. I’m not doing anything for that bitch. Tell her to go fuck herself.”
Although Nicolaides says Tupac – who was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in 1996 – “never took the test,” he thinks the musician “found it amusing.”
Regardless, Nicolaides said he “can’t blame Janet for asking that question. It was the early 1990s, and people were still dying of AIDS. And Tupac, God love him, had a reputation.”
Pearlman in the book chronicles the tensions between the already established Jackson and newcomer Shakur, who “certainly didn’t have warm feelings for Janet,” according to his friend and Lords of the Underground rapper Dupré Kelly.
