The incident occurred off-set, but the rapper caught a case for the altercation that Leon said he found out about by reading the morning paper.
“We had to shut down production a couple times because he got into trouble either with police or wanting to get involved with somebody who [was] selling t-shirts of his. It was always things going on, unfortunately,” said Leon. He did note that when it came to performing on set, “[Tupac] was one hundred” and “I thought he shined.”
As the story goes for the shooting, Tupac and his crew had a caravan of cars in which the rapper was in the lead. They were driving up to the hotel they were staying at when they came across two White men beating up a Black man. Tupac decided that he didn’t like the look of things so he jumped out of his car to make his presence known, and all of his crew did the same. Soon, one of the men fighting pulled out a gun and pointed it at the rapper. It was then that Tupac reportedly pulled up his shirt, flashed his “Thug Life” tattoo, and told him to shoot. Instead, the man broke the window to Pac’s car with his gun and took off running with his friend. The incident escalated to Tupac firing shots of his own, injuring both men. It was later learned that the men were drunk off-duty cops and Tupac beat the case that was stacked against him.
Leon recalled finding out about the incident by reading the newspaper. “I’m like, I guess we’re not doing that scene today,” Leon said with a laugh. He also confirmed that while filming the basketball scene, Tupac handed out blunts to the crowd. Check out the clip of Leon’s interview below.