Eve met Suge Knight backstage at the 2001 Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards in Santa Monica and what followed was an unexpected dinner, a brush with label politics and a short-lived romance that she now details in her memoir, Who’s That Girl?
The Grammy Award-winning rapper writes that she was cohosting the awards show with Luther Vandross, Leeza Gibbons and Shemar Moore when she heard Knight was in the building.
“I knew what I had to do,” she writes. She asked her security guard to bring Knight to her, a request met with hesitation. When she saw Knight backstage, she approached him herself. “Hi, I have been wanting to meet you,” she told him.
That introduction led to dinner at Crustacean in Beverly Hills, where Knight offered to help her navigate her strained relationship with Interscope Records. At the time, Eve had released two albums through the label and was frustrated with what she calls a “hostile working relationship” with Dr. Dre.
“I was still in my little mood about Dre even though we made a solid hit together, so having Suge, his former boss at Death Row stomping around Interscope felt like some sweet revenge,” she writes. “I am not really sure how I concocted this idea yet here we were…”
Knight later visited Interscope’s offices on her behalf, which Eve believes led to fallout with then-label head Jimmy Iovine.
“I feel like he (Jimmy) took his anger out on my third album,” she writes.
Despite Knight’s reputation, Eve insists their connection wasn’t transactional. “Red plants, red furs… he’s a Blood. Maybe my red hair was a green flag for him too,” she writes, describing the courtship.
But the relationship didn’t last. Ruff Ryders founders Dee and Waah Dean, who mentored Eve, were not on board.
“They didn’t like the idea of me hanging out with Suge at all,” she writes. “When my guys said it was time to cut the cord, I didn’t think twice.”
When she called Knight to end things, his response surprised her: “If I was your little sis, I would tell you the same thing.”
Knight, once a dominant force in West Coast Hip-Hop as the co-founder of Death Row Records, is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in 2018. He was convicted for the 2015 hit-and-run death of Terry Carter outside a Compton burger stand.
Who’s That Girl? was released via Hanover Square Press.
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