Jada Pinkett Smith is convinced late rapper Tupac Shakur was her “soulmate”.

The actor, who has been married to Will Smith since 1997, was good friends with the hip-hop star prior to his death in a shooting in Las Vegas in 1996 and she’s now opened up about their special bond – but she’s insisted their relationship never turned romantic because there was “no chemistry” between them.

She told Rolling Out: “A soulmate, yeah. If there is such a thing as past lives, I definitely think Pac and I have travelled a few together. You know, in various forms.”

She added of the lack of romance: “It just wasn’t possible. There was no chemistry between us … It’s that friendship-love chemistry, trust me.”

In a 2009 interview posted on YouTube.com, Pinkett Smith explained they first met at the Baltimore School for the Arts in Maryland in the 1980s and became close pals.

She explained: “It was the first day and he came over to me and introduced himself. And in high school, Pac was a little funny-looking. Definitely from looking at him, wasn’t necessarily the type of cat that I would even, like, deal with.

“But as soon as he approached me, he was like a magnet. Once you paid attention to him he kind of sucked you in. And we hit it off from that moment on … I don’t think either one of us thought we would have made it in the way that we did, but we knew we were gonna do something.”

Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996 at the age of 25 and more than a quarter of a century later, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 60, was indicted by a grand jury in Nevada on one count of murder with a deadly weapon following his arrest in September this year.

Shakur’s sister, Sekyiwa “Set”, previously declared she hopes justice can finally be done. She told TMZ in a statement: “This is no doubt a pivotal moment. The silence of the past 27 years surrounding this case has spoken loudly in our community.

“It’s important to me that the world, the country, the justice system, and our people acknowledge the gravity of the passing of this man, my brother, my mother’s son, my father’s son. His life and death matters, and should not go unsolved or unrecognised, so yes, today is a victory but I will reserve judgment until all the facts and legal proceedings are complete.”