Rosie Perez recalls Madonna asking for help to hook up with Tupac Shakur

The ’90s were a time, weren't they? Tupac Shakur was still alive, Rosie Perez was nominated for an Oscar, Madonna was out in these streets, and their three paths collided one night thanks to a douchey boyfriend.

On Wednesday's Drew Barrymore Show, Perez recounted how she played wingman to the Material Girl when it came to macking on the "How Do You Want It" rapper.

The former Fly Girl revealed she was good friends with Tupac, who stepped in to be her date when her then-beau flaked on her.

"So I was going to the Soul Train Music Awards and my date calls me up a half an hour before I'm getting in the car," Perez begins in the clip above, "and says, 'I can't go with you because my girlfriend will see me.'"

At this point, an outraged Barrymore is ready to teleport back to 1993 and fight this man — whoever he may be — with her bare hands, but Perez continues.

"I was like, 'You mother...!" and after cursing out what, one hopes, was her then-ex-beau, Perez hung up the phone. When it rang again, she thought it was the jerk calling her back and she started to lay into him when she realized it was Pac. She then sobbed out her story of what just happened.

"And he said, 'You know what, I'm gonna go with you, we're gonna walk up in there, we're gonna act like we're on a date, and he's going to die.'"

Tupac Shakur: one of the greatest rappers of all time and a good wingman.

While they were out at the Soul Train Awards, Perez's other good friend, Madonna, shows up and she immediately sets her sights on Shakur.

"She was there and she came up to me and she was like, 'Yo, what's up? Y'all are together?' And I said, 'No,' she goes, 'Really?' I go, 'Yeah,' she goes, 'Hook me up. I said, 'You got it.'"

And the rest is history. Madonna and Tupac dated secretly from 1993 to 1994, with the Queen of Pop confirming the relationship in a 2015 interview with Howard Stern.

In a 2018 Howard Stern interview, Pac's BFF Snoop Dogg recalls seeing the couple together when he was performing on Saturday Night Live and the "California Love" rapper dropped off some weed for him, with Madonna in tow.

"She was just riding along for the ride," Snoop said.

Also in 2018, Madonna noted that her relationship with Tupac was both personal and professional, revealing that they recorded a song for her 1994 Bedtime Stories album that has never been released.

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"One day," Madonna teased, "I will release the song we did together!" 

A few years back, a demo of "I'd Rather Be Your Lover," the third track from Bedtime Stories, leaked with a verse from Tupac, but when news broke of his sexual assault case, Madonna reportedly dropped the verse in favor of one from Meshell Ndegeocello, who was signed to Madonna’s Maverick Records.

In 2019, a letter from Tupac to Madonna — written in 1995 while he was serving time in prison for sexual assault — in which he apologizes for their break-up, was auctioned off, against Madonna's wishes. Shakur was released from prison in October 1995, but was fatally shot less than a year later at the age of 25.