Jeff Pearlman’s New Biography Reveals Untold Hardships and Triumphs of Tupac Shakur

Jeff Pearlman's forthcoming biography, Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur, set for release in October 2025, offers an unflinching look at the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur. It is based upon hundreds of interviews and years of investigation and tells the story of Shakur's transformation from a theater arts student in Baltimore into hip-hop's most complex and consequential artist.

Pearlman reveals new stories about Tupac's early hardships, his complex family dynamics, and the poverty he endured as a child. The biography explains how Tupac was inspired to take the name Tupac Amaru II, the revolutionary, and how reading about a tragic story in the newspaper led him to write "Brenda's Got a Baby." It also recounts a 1992 tragedy in Marin City in which a six-year-old boy was shot and killed during a shooting — something that plagued Tupac for the rest of his life.

This book examines how Tupac became enthralled with a local crack kingpin and how this experience helped him to evolve into a hard person who became part of his portrayal as Bishop in Juice. The book further reveals his dealings with Death Row Records, as well as his relationship with Suge Knight, and how his desire to portray toughness ultimately culminated in his death.

Pearlman examines Tupac's emotional struggles, including his feelings of abandonment when his biological father, Billy Garland, failed to visit him in prison. Anecdotes such as actress Lela Rochon declining to go to a movie with him on the set of Gang Related show the tension and loneliness that often surrounded him.

"To me, Tupac Shakur is an historical figure in American culture. The biggest takeaway is all the shit he had to overcome to get here, and the poverty he endured. [Tupac's sister] Set Shakur talked to me about their time in Baltimore, and the rats that she's still haunted by; the sound of rats scurrying across the floorboards at night and the rats taking their food," author Jeff Pearlman shares.

He continued, "She talked to me about Tupac being embarrassed to have a friend use the bathroom in the winter because they had no heat in the house, and because the house was a sh*thole. People should admire him more for all he overcame. It would have been easy for him not to be Tupac. It would have been easy for him to just never go for it, never aspire to it, and just accept the bleakness around him. But he didn't. It's a story of struggle, and a story of a guy overcoming a ton of hardship."