Suge Knight, a close friend and former associate of Tupac Shakur, has claimed that the late rapper was cremated and his ashes were smoked, TMZ reports.
Tupac was fatally shot in a 1996 drive-by attack in Las Vegas and died six days later after being placed on life support. Knight, who was with Tupac during the shooting, recounted that after the rapper’s death, Tupac’s mother requested cremation.
According to Knight, he arranged the cremation by negotiating with a funeral home employee, who initially refused but eventually agreed after Knight offered $200,000 and an additional $1 million in cash. After the ashes were collected, Knight said Tupac’s mother hosted a gathering at her Las Vegas hotel, where those present rolled Tupac’s ashes into several blunts and smoked them. Knight added that he himself did not participate because he was on probation and wanted to avoid violating the terms.
Knight’s account emerges as a Las Vegas court begins the trial of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former Los Angeles-area gang leader accused of orchestrating Tupac’s murder. The trial, nearly 30 years after the shooting, commenced just a week after jury selection. Davis, arrested in September 2024, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon in connection with gang activity.
At the trial, prosecutor Binu Palal argued that Davis acted out of “visceral anger” following an earlier attack on his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson. Palal alleged that Davis procured a gun and handed it to Anderson, who then shot at Tupac’s car. Palal explained the long-standing lack of prosecution by noting the code of silence within gang culture, but asserted that Davis ultimately struggled to stay silent, referencing interviews and a book in which Davis allegedly discussed his involvement.
Defense attorney Michael Sanft countered that Palal presented fiction as fact and questioned the integrity of the police investigation. Sanft highlighted missing investigative records and accused police of misconduct, including allegedly providing a detective with a fake gun for testing. He also criticized Detective Clifford Mogg’s work as “biased, sloppy and incomplete,” alleging failures in report filing. Furthermore, Sanft challenged the prosecution’s witnesses as unreliable, citing their criminal backgrounds, financial motives, and inconsistent statements.
