Tupac's Friends Smoked His Cremated Ashes After His Death, Says Suge Knight (Exclusive)

It’s been nearly three decades since Tupac Shakur died in a Las Vegas hospital — and yet, the story of his final days still reads like a scene ripped from one of his own verses: gunfire, betrayal, excruciating hospital nights and death wrapped in a haze of myth and street lore. Now, from a California prison cell, Marion “Suge” Knight is adding a new, almost unbelievable chapter to that story.

Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE from California’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, where he’s serving a 28-year sentence for a 2015 fatal hit-and-run, the former Death Row Records CEO isn’t just reliving the night Shakur died — he’s revealing what happened in the hours after. According to Knight, some of Shakur’s closest friends and family rolled the rapper’s cremated ashes into a blunt — and smoked it.

“I was so happy to say I was on probation — I couldn’t smoke,” Knight says. “I told his mother, ‘Moms, I’d love to, but if I hit that, I’ll get in trouble.’” He laughs. “I was probably the only one who didn’t hit him.”

It’s a story that fits Shakur’s legacy. He didn’t just rap about living and dying by his own rules — he embodied it. What Knight alleges isn’t just a tribute; it’s a snapshot of how Shakur’s circle tried to hold on to a spirit too big to be buried.

The night of September 7, 1996, was supposed to be a celebration. A Mike Tyson fight. Front-row seats. Vegas heat. Instead, it turned into one of the most infamous moments in hip-hop history. After leaving the MGM Grand, Shakur and Knight were ambushed at a red light. Bullets tore through their black BMW. Knight was grazed in the head. Shakur was shot four times.

Bleeding and disoriented, Knight says he made a hard U-turn and gunned the car toward Las Vegas Boulevard, two tires blown out, sirens echoing. “I got out and tried to tell the officers what happened while I was bleeding everywhere,” he says. “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.”

Cops who’d heard the shots on an unrelated call chased them down and flagged an ambulance. Both men were rushed to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. Knight got stitched up and discharged. Shakur wasn’t so lucky.

But for a while, it seemed like he might pull through. Doctors performed two emergency surgeries, including the removal of one of his lungs. But the damage was too severe. On September 13, 1996, at 4:03 p.m., Tupac Amaru Shakur was pronounced dead. He was 25.

That night, grief gave way to ritual. Knight says the slain rapper’s mother, Afeni Shakur, wasn’t interested in waiting — she wanted her son cremated immediately. No delay. Knight claims he paid a million in cash to make it happen. By nightfall, a tight circle of the people closest to Shakur, Afeni among them, gathered to honor him in a fitting way.

“A bag with his ashes was passed around,” Knight says. “His homies rolled him up. They smoked him.” There’s a long pause on the phone line. “You gotta understand, that’s what made sense. It was symbolic. It’s like… you keep part of him.”

It’s the kind of detail that feels almost too on-brand to be true — yet, in the outlaw mythology that surrounds Shakur’s death, it somehow fits. He wasn’t just a rapper. He was a poet, a fighter, a revolutionary, a prophet and a kid growing up in Baltimore who got too famous, too fast, and knew it might kill him.

Now, 29 years later, his ashes — and his legacy — still burn.