Tupac Shakur backstage at KMEL Summer Jam 1992, wearing a blue cap and denim jacket with multiple gold chains.
Tim Mosenfelder / Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Gossip

Vanderpump Rules Star Lala Kent Says Tupac Took Over Her Body When He Died in 1996

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Jenny McCarthy asked how a sweet Utah girl became so hood on TV. Lala Kent’s answer: Tupac’s soul moved into her body the moment he was shot, and she means it literally.

Lala Kent got a “thug life” tattoo down the inside of her left ankle, in her own handwriting, because she believes she’s carrying the soul of Tupac Shakur.

The Vanderpump Rules star laid it out on Jenny McCarthy’s SiriusXM show The Jenny McCarthy Show in February 2018. McCarthy had asked how “this sweet, beautiful Utah girl” turned into a “cool, hood chick,” and Kent didn’t hesitate.

“I am a firm believer that when Tupac died he took over my body,” she said. “I know you’re laughing but I’m being for real.”

Lala Kent in a green Givenchy football jersey with wavy blonde hair at a Vanderpump Rules premiere event.
At the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, Lala Kent turns out for Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules” Season 11 premiere party on January 17, 2024. Photo by Amanda Edwards / Getty Images.

Tupac was shot in a Las Vegas drive-by in September 1996. Kent was born in 1990, which puts her at 6 years old the moment she says his soul moved in. She’d already floated a past-life version of the theory in the months before the McCarthy interview.

Tupac Shakur wearing a purple cap and blue denim jacket with gold chains backstage at KMEL Summer Jam 1992.
Backstage at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA, on August 1, 1992, Tupac Shakur appears in a blue denim jacket and layered gold chains during the KMEL Summer Jam. Photo by Tim Mosenfelder / Getty Images.

Kent, who says she’s “never been in a fight before” and calls herself “as bougie and white as they come,” admits the arrangement has its friction. “I’m sure he is not thrilled with his new body casing,” she said, “but I’m not thrilled about the temper.”

The tattoo and the theory aged into something heavier. In 2024, former Vanderpump Rules castmate Faith Stowers called out Kent’s whole “hood” persona as cultural appropriation, framing Black identity as a costume Kent could put on and take off.

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About the author

January Nelson

January Nelson

January Nelson is a writer, editor, and dreamer. She writes about astrology, games, love, relationships, and entertainment. January graduated with an English and Literature degree from Columbia University.