New details about the aftermath of Tupac Shakur’s death are being revealed by former Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight.
The rapper signed with Death Row in 1995, and they put out his fourth studio album, All Eyez On Me, released in February 1996, just seven months before his death.
Knight was driving a black BMW 750iL with Tupac in the passenger seat when a late model Cadillac pulled up to the car and fired several shots, with Shakur struck four times, twice in the chest.
Shakur – born Lesane Parish Crooks – was put on life support and underwent emergency surgeries, but ultimately succumbed to his injuries on September 13, 1996, six days after the Las Vegas shooting.
Knight, 60, currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for a fatal 2015 hit-and-run accident, revealed in a new phone interview with People a bizarre ritual that took place, months after detailing a conspiracy against him with Daily Mail.
Just hours after his passing, Knight revealed his mother – activist Afeni Shakur – had her son cremated immediately, with many of his friends then actually smoking his ashes after rolling them into a blunt.
‘I was so happy to say I was on probation — I couldn’t smoke. I told his mother, “Moms, I’d love to, but if I hit that, I’ll get in trouble,”‘ Knight said from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
‘I was probably the only one who didn’t hit him,’ Knight said of the ritual, adding that he spent upwards of $1 million in cash to have Shakur cremated immediately, at the behest of Afeni Shakur.
‘A bag with his ashes was passed around. His homies rolled him up. They smoked him,’ Knight added of the ritual.
‘You gotta understand, that’s what made sense. It was symbolic. It’s like… you keep part of him,’ Knight continued.
He also opened up about the night of the fatal shooting – September 7, 1996 – after they attended a Mike Tyson boxing match at the MGM Grand Arena.
One of the shots grazed Knight in the head, as he gunned the car and made a U-turn on Las Vegas Boulevard with two of the cars tires blown out.
‘I got out and tried to tell the officers what happened while I was bleeding everywhere,’ Knight said of the immediate aftermath of the Shakur shooting.
‘I then was getting Tupac out the car, even when the door was open. I had to go over there bleeding everywhere, take the seat belt off him,’ he added.
They were both rushed to the University Medical Center of South Nevada, where Knight received treatment and was discharged, but Shakur underwent two emergency surgeries, one of which removed one of his lungs.
Shakur was pronounced dead at 4:03 PM on September 13, 1996 at just 25 years of age, and for decades, his murder and the identity of his killer remained one of pop culture’s most enduring mysteries.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police arrested Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis in September 2023, though he pleaded not guilty to the charges in November 2023.
Davis, a former gang leader who once boasted of being the ‘on-site commander’ in the shooting, remains behind bars awaiting trial, slated to begin in February 2026.
