Ice-T Reflects on Performing a Barbra Streisand Song with Tupac in 'Surprisingly Tender' Moment 4 Months Before Rapper's Death

The 'lighthearted' moment came just months before the rapper's tragic death

NEED TO KNOW

• Ice-T and Tupac Shakur knew each other from the West Coast rap scene
• The two paired up for a hilarious and unusual performance on Fox’s 1996 show, Saturday Night Special, as well as doing a parody interview with Jennifer Coolidge as Lauren Hutton
• Ice-T has opened up in interviews about the advice he tried giving the younger rapper before his tragic death later that year

Ice-T is looking back at the funny side of Tupac Shakur.

The two West Coast rappers took the stage together in May 1996 on Fox's brief response to late-night sketch comedy, Saturday Night Special. In an episode that aired 30 years ago, Shakur initially performed his single "Only God Can Judge Me."

Then, he and Ice-T got together to perform an unlikely tune, Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond's "You Don't Bring Me Flowers." Ice-T recently shared a clip from the show on X, calling the "rare" performance "a surprisingly tender (and funny) duet."

"Pac trying not to laugh makes it even better. Pure iconic, lighthearted energy," he wrote.

The clip also showed a bit of the pair's parody interview with Jennifer Coolidge, who was acting as Lauren Hutton in the zany interview, where the two touch on some important issues of the time, only to be sidelined by her.

"This will never not be funny!!" the rapper, 68, ended.

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Ice-T previously opened up about his relationship with Tupac, who was 13 years his junior, in the West Coast rap scene during an appearance on the Holdin' Court Podcast in 2021.

"I knew Pac ever since he was in Digital Underground and as he moved up in the gangsta rap ranks, of course, I worked with him. But I was not a fan of Pac hanging around L.A. gang bangers," he shared. "Me being around it and growing up in it and Pac being from the Bay… if you're from the Bay, you don't really truly understand L.A. gangs."

"I just worried about Pac," he explained, noting that gang culture was particularly volatile at the time and that the young artist didn't always understand what he was getting involved in.

"I'd tell people, 'I'm angry with Pac,' like that's my kid. I mean, no, I'm not gonna say he was my kid, but he's like a youngster, like a little brother," he continued. "I remember when Pac came over my house and he played 'Hit 'Em Up' to me… my job, as an OG, was to give him a little guidance," noting that other elders on the West Coast would tell him the same.

Shakur died in September 1996 at the age of 25, six days after being shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

Ice-T noted that while he missed the rapper, he was also aware that he'd "made mistakes," concluding, "I wish he might… would have paid more attention to myself and other people."

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