XXL celebrates 50 years of hip-hop with this moment:
Feb. 7, 1995: Although Tupac Shakur will always be remembered as a hip-hop legend with a lyrical flow and being a freedom fighter, he was sentenced as a sex offender on this day in 1995.
In November of 1993, Tupac Shakur and members of his entourage were charged with sexually assaulting a female fan who would later be identified as Ayanna Jackson. The Brooklyn woman, who had previous sexual relations with the West Coast star a few days earlier, claimed she was raped by ‘Pac and his entourage when she met them in a hotel room at New York’s Parker Meridien Hotel. The late rhymer claimed the encounter was consensual throughout the entirety of the court proceedings and even pleaded his case to the public by talking about it on The Arsenio Hall Show on March 8, 1994, but the findings of the case implied otherwise.
On Feb. 7, 1995, a month before Shakur dropped his third studio album, Me Against the World, the late rapper was sentenced to 1.5 to 4.5 years in prison for sexually abusing the fan but was acquitted of weapons and sodomy charges. He was housed at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y.
During his prison stint, Shakur married his girlfriend Keisha Morris, but their union was annulled 10 months later.
On Oct. 12, 1995, after serving just nine months of his sentence, Tupac Shakur was released on $1.4 million bail, which was put up by Death Row Records CEO Marion “Suge” Knight and in exchange, Shakur would release three albums under Death Row.