‘Dear Mama’ Director Took On Project Despite Being Brutally Attacked By Tupac, ‘We Were Kids’

Talk about being the bigger person! Filmmaker Allen Hughes is opening up about taking on the Dear Mama documentary despite being brutally attacked by Tupac Shakur 30 years ago.

Hughes’ five-part docuseries explores how Tupac and Afeni Shakur’s mother-son dynamic shaped American history. Dear Mama explores Afeni’s past as a leader in the Black Panther Party and how it shaped Tupac’s journey as a political visionary and his rap career.

It took a lot for the Dead Presidents creator to agree to take on the project exactly three decades after he was physically attacked by Tupac and a group of gang members who were angry about the rapper being fired from the cult-classic Menace II Society.

Hughes is now opening up about his change of heart to work on a Tupac project after the late rapper’s estate reached out to him to direct the docuseries.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it because of obvious personal reasons,” Hughes told AP.

In his interview with the Associated Press, Hughes said, “It takes a lot out of you doing documentaries, too — especially if you do it over the course of a few years like we did this one. But once I realized that there wasn’t enough about Tupac that I didn’t realize, it might be better to explore him through his mother and make it a dual narrative. The estate and family were down with that.

Tupac spent 15 days in jail for attacking Hughes, the LA Times reports. Hughes had no interest in reconciling with the rapper at the time despite his public apology.

But now, looking back at the ordeal, Hughes admits how hard it was to let go of the “trauma” after being attacked by over a dozen angry men.

“It took a few years for me to get over it,” Hughes said.

“First of all, I saw the apology in real-time. I wish I was man enough to have connected with him at the time. I’ve since seen all the audiovisuals with him saying he was remorseful about it, which I never knew existed. But we were kids. We were all 19 when that happened.”

“No, you should never take it to the level of violence, whatever the misunderstanding is,” he continued. “But I’ve been in fist fights with my brother and recovered. Tupac loved hard. When he got angry, it was hard. I think maybe with the trauma from being completely obliterated by 10-15 guys, it just took a lot.”

Hughes’ “Dear Mama” premiered Friday on FX, and the first two episodes are available to stream on Hulu.