Suge Knight Allegedly Had Affair With Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes After Tupac's Death — All The Messy Details
Messy boots!
getty Did Suge Knight have an affair with Lisa Lopes?
Anyone who's been in hip hop for a good number of years can tell you that the good tea comes from back in the 1990s. During those more halcyon days of music, things were a lot freer — albeit, obviously, a bit messier — thanks to seemingly unlimited marketing budgets, the rise of the "video vixen," and the sheer color and pride evident in hip hop music.
Even during the height of the so-called East Coast/West Coast rivalry — that ended in a hail of gunfire when both Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace and Tupac Shakur were murdered — there was still a lot of fun to be had.
At the center of 1990s hip hop were two dynamic, and vastly different, men: Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, head of the Bad Boy label and leader of the East Coast faction, and Marion "Suge" Knight, a former football star-turned-gangbanger, head of the Death Row label, and de facto leader of the West Coast faction.
And while we've certainly discussed plenty of Diddy's exploits in the past, today, we'll be talking about one of Knight's more interesting, and controversial, conquests. Despite his claims, we still have to ask ourselves: did Suge Knight sleep with Lisa Lopes? Let's take a look.
1. Did Suge Knight have an affair with Lisa Lopes? The former Death Row CEO claims he did.
"It was a sexual relationship, I had major love for her...I cared for her," he said, adding that he knew Lopes' then-boyfriend, former football star Andre Rison, so he didn't let it get too deep with the late rapper. However, Knight said they were also "cool."
2. Lopes was in love with Tupac Shakur.
Despite reportedly sleeping with Knight, Lopes was in love with Tupac Shakur. Lopes frequently referred to the "Hit 'Em Up" rapper as her "soulmate," and Shakur reportedly told Lopes to "never let me date you."
However, according to several sources who were around Death Row records at the time, had Lopes given Shakur the opportunity to "date" her, he definitely would have taken it, and vice versa. Who knows where they would be today had they hooked up?
3. Andre Rison said he thought Lopes and Knight's relationship was 'just messy.'
Rison spoke about the nature of his relationship with Lopes for the Lifetime documentary, Hopelessly in Love, which chronicled both the ups and downs of their relationship that would, sometimes, turn toxic. (Remember when Lopes burned down Rison's house because she thought he was cheating?)
Regardless, the duo had an on-again, off-again relationship, and one of the times they went "off" was in 1996, after Shakur was murdered. In her grief, Lopes turned to Knight, which kicked off their relationship. Rison, for his part, confirmed the duo had slept together, and said that it was "just messy."
4. But Rison also said he wasn't 100 percent sure that Lopes and Shakur didn't sleep together.
Ultimately, Rison and Lopes didn't get married, and called off their engagement. In the same video seen above, Rison said that the reason he called off their engagement was because he wasn't completely convinced that Lopes and Shakur never slept together. Since he couldn't get over that possibility, he and Lopes never got married.
5. After she left TLC, Lopes joined Death Row Records, which is where she and Knight first began to grow closer.
Part of the reason Lopes and Knight were able to "bond" with one another was that after she'd left TLC, she went and joined Death Row Records, which was helmed by Knight at the time. Lopes was looking to go in a completely different creative direction with her career, and Knight — she thought — would be instrumental in making that happen for her.
6. Though Rison and Knight claim Knight slept with Lopes, Lopes isn't here to confirm or deny her side of the story.
"Left Eye" died in 2002 after a tragic car accident. So, she's not here to confirm or deny any of the claims about her purported relationship with Knight.
Lopes' Hopelessly in Love episodes are available on Lifetime on Demand now.
Bernadette Giacomazzo is an editor, writer, publicist, and photographer whose work has appeared in Teen Vogue, People, Us Weekly, The Source, XXL, HipHopDX, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, BET.com, and more.