Countering the claims that director and producer John Singleton made about his walking away from a planned Tupac biopic because the film wasn’t respectful to the rapper’s legacy, producer L.T. Hutton instead says the Boyz n the Hood director was fired.
Earlier this month Singleton wrote a lengthy post on Instagram breaking down why he left the project, starting, “The reason I am not making this picture is because the people involved aren’t really respectful of the legacy of Tupac Amaru Shakur.”
In a new interview with “The Goin Way Back Show,” L.T. Hutton, an original producer on the biopic, denied Singleton’s claims, saying, “[That is] one hundred percent equivocally not true. At all.”
“To say that, that means that I would be disrespectful to Tupac,” he added. “I wouldn’t be disrespectful. How could I be? You can answer to Hollywood, that’s nothing. I’m in the streets everyday.”
Expanding on his reaction to Singleton’s comments, Hutton hinted that the director was trying to cover up his own removal from the project.
“It was a negative comment due to the fact that, it wasn’t, ‘He walked off.’ He was let go,” Hutton said. “He hasn’t been on the project in a long time. So, his timing of this was because we announced that we’re moving forward and we announced our start-date of principal photography. So that was a rant. I don’t know why he did it…I mean, I’m not gon’ bash the guy, but just know for a fact that we fighting to protect the legacy and honor of Tupac. Some people are self-servient and egotistical. If you say, ‘Only my voice can be heard in this picture,’ you already a no-go.”
Capping off his own comments with a note about the ongoing production process, Hutton promised that his interest is in telling Tupac’s story to the fullest.
“It’s not my story, it’s not his story,” he said. “It’s not my company’s story. It is the Tupac story.”
Watch the full interview below:
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