Tupac’s Mom Let Him Go After 1996 Shooting, Suge Knight Alleges

Suge Knight has a lot of time to think now. He’s locked up in California’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, serving out a 28-year sentence. Once the fire-breathing boss of Death Row Records, now he’s sixty and stuck behind walls. But in his head, he’s back in that BMW in Vegas. Gunshots. Sirens. Tupac beside him, bleeding, trying to stay Tupac right to the end.

Knight opened up to PEOPLE about what he says happened in those last moments. But more than the violence, he keeps circling back to one person — Afeni Shakur. Tupac’s mother. The one he says made the hardest call a mother ever could.

What Did Suge See That Night In Vegas?

It’s 1996. Knight’s driving. Tupac’s riding shotgun. They’d just left the MGM Grand after a fight. Trouble was never far behind Pac, and that night it found him at a red light. A car rolled up, bullets tore through metal and flesh. Knight says he got hit too. Blood everywhere. Tires shredded. He remembers slamming the gas, making a U-turn with Pac shot up beside him.

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Cops heard the gunfire. They pulled up fast. By the time Knight’s BMW wheezed to a stop, backup was already rolling in. At the hospital, Knight got patched up. Pac? He wasn’t so lucky.

Knight remembers Pac sitting up, still acting like Pac. He asked for a blunt — no, two blunts — right there in the hospital. Knight laughs when he tells it. Says Pac even wanted Hennessy. Maybe that sounds wild, but that was Tupac. Nothing normal, even when he was half alive.

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But behind the bravado, Knight says Pac was already thinking ahead. He knew prison was coming. He knew the odds. Knight says Pac told him straight — he’d rather die than go back inside. He didn’t want suicide on his soul, so he looked to the only person he trusted completely.

What Did Afeni Really Do?

This is where Knight’s version turns heavy. He says Tupac asked Afeni to help him go. To let him go. To not let him be stuck in pain, or prison, or hooked up to machines.

Knight claims Afeni tried to honor that. Gave him pills, hoping he’d drift off. Doctors fought to keep him alive anyway. Knight says they brought Pac back once and Afeni stopped them. She told them not to do it again. If he slipped, let him slip. Don’t force him to stay.

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On September 13, Tupac was gone. Twenty-five years old. A whole legend squeezed into a quarter-century.

Knight doesn’t blame Afeni. He talks about her with nothing but respect. Says she loved her son more than her own peace. Says Pac loved her that same way back.

He even talks about his own mother in the same breath. Knight says Pac’s mom and his mom were alike in one way — both would do anything to protect their kids. Even if it meant making a choice that would break them forever.

Today, Knight sits behind bars replaying it all. He still calls Pac his brother. Says he loved him more than he loved himself. For a man who spent years fronting like he was untouchable, those words land different now.

From inside a California cell, the old king of Death Row remembers the ride, the blood, the last “I love you” in a hospital room — and the mother who did what her son asked when he couldn’t do it himself.