A letter written by the rapper before he died revealed that Madonna's skin color would have been the cause of the breakup.
Tupac Shakur, American rapper assassinated in 1996, ended his discreet romance with Madonna because he feared that a relationship with the white pop superstar would harm his image, the information was revealed in one of his letters that recently came out to the light.
In this letter, dated January 15, 1995 and which will be put up for sale at the end of July by an American auction house, Tupac tells the singer: "I never wanted to hurt you."
"Being seen with a black man wouldn't do your career any harm, on the contrary, it might even make you appear more open and passionate," Tupac Shakur carefully wrote on lined paper.
"But me, at least in my initial perception, I feel that I owe it to my 'image', I feel that I would be disappointing half of the people who made me what I think I am."
In his letter he confides in Madonna, who did not reveal this relationship until 2015, that he had read an interview in which she declared: "I am in favor of reintegrating all rappers and basketball players into society, or anything in that sense".
"Those words really hurt me," she confided.
The letter, whose existence was revealed by the American celebrity site TMZ, is among the items proposed in an auction of the Gotta Have Rock and Roll house that will take place from July 19.
Shortly after his breakup with Madonna, Tupac Shakur was jailed on s-xual assault allegations that he denied. It would have been in prison where Shakur wrote the letter.
He came out of prison with an even more assertive image of the king of gangsta rap and the following year he was shot to death, aged 25, in circumstances that remain a mystery to this day.
For two decades, the relationship between Madonna, 58 years old today, and Tupac Shakur was unheard of, but in 2015 the singer spoke openly about the subject to justify a 1994 appearance on a famous American TV show by David Letterman.
So far, representatives for Shakur and Madonna have not commented on the information in the letter. However, US media say it is true.
At the time of his death, Tupac Shakur was engaged to American designer Kidada Jones.
