Rashida Jones is an American actress, screenwriter, writer, singer, and model who shot herself in the public eye at the age of 17 when she wrote an open letter to Tupac Makaveli Shakur challenging him for disrespecting her father, Quincy Jones. She is also known for her work in the television series Parks and Recreation.
Rashida Jones Bio
Rashida Jones was born on February 25, 1976, in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, as Rashida Leah Jones. Her horoscope is Pisces, and she is the youngest daughter of her father Quincy Jones, a well-known record producer and musician, and her mother, actress Peggy Lipton. Rashida has an older sister from her mother – Kidada Jones – and five half-siblings from her father – children from marriages/affairs he had with other women. Her parents divorced when she was only fourteen years old, so she moved with her mother to Brentwood, while her sister, Kidada, stayed in Bel Air with her father. Her ancestry is mixed, as her father is of African-American (with ties to Cameroon) and Welsh descent, while her mother, Peggy, is an Ashkenazi Jew. However, she is an American citizen and belongs to the black ethnic group.
Rashida grew up in the Bel-Air district of Los Angeles and attended a Hebrew school, but did not finish it. She then attended Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, where she was voted “Most Likely To Succeed” by her classmates, including Kim Kardashian, Nicole Richie, and Paris Hilton, for her exceptional qualities. The actress showed a flair for the entertainment industry at a young age when she played the piano and wrote songs. At Buckley, Rashida was part of the drama/theater group under the mentorship of her acting teacher Tim Hillman. She also completed her college education at Harvard University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy before graduating in 1997.
Interestingly, the entertainment superstar we have today would not, or perhaps she would not have been if she hadn’t been in another field, because she had a great love for the legal profession in the beginning and wanted to become a lawyer. However, after the O. J. Simpson murder case, she became discouraged from this profession. The escapades during the trial caused her to shift her interest to an acting career.
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Movie Career & Net Worth
Rashida Jones began her professional acting career in 1997 when she appeared in The Last Don, a television series based on the book by Mario Puzo. She made her film debut the following year, 1998 when she appeared in the film Mythos Amerika. Her enviable film credits include East of A, If These Walls Could Talk 2, Freaks and Geeks (2000), Boston Public (2000-2002), Now You Know (2002), Death of a Dynasty (2003), Strip Search (2004), Wanted (2005), Parks and Recreation (2009-2015), Cop Out (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012), Angie Tribeca (2016), Hot Girls Wanted (2015) and many others. Her net worth is estimated at $5 million, based on her work as an actress and model and her endorsements.
Family – Parents, Sister
Rashida Jones, as already mentioned, has a biological sister who is also an actress. Her sister’s name is Kidada Jones. Her father is the popular Quincy Jones and her mother is Peggy Lipton, born as Margaret Ann “Peggy” Lipton, actress and former model. Peggy married Quincy Jones in 1974 and it was Quincy’s third marriage. The marriage, which ended in 1990, produced two daughters – Kidada Jones and Rashida Jones. Quincy Jones has only been married three times but has seven children with five wives.
He married his first wife, Jeri Caldwell, in 1957, but they divorced in 1966. They had a daughter – Jolie Levine. His second marriage was with Swedish actress Ulla Anderson in 1967, and they had two children together – Martina Jones and his only son, Quincy Jones III – before they separated in 1974. He had an affair with Carol Reynolds, which produced a daughter, Rachel Jones. And in 1993 he had his last child, a beautiful daughter – Kenya Julia Miambi Sarah Jones – with the actress Nastassja Kinski.
Who is Rashida Jones’s Husband?
Rashida Jones is not a fan of marriage. Perhaps her parents’ dysfunctional marriage contributes significantly to this fact, but her attitude to marriage is clear. She is not yet ready for this level of commitment. She believes that the idea of marriage has been distorted and she believes that there must be another model that people can follow. But even if she is not married and therefore has no husband, she is still not a lesbian. Her sexual orientation is heterosexual and she has had a long list of affairs, most recently with Ezra Koenig, the lead singer, and guitarist of the rock band Vampire Weekend. They seem to have a romantic love affair that began sometime in 2016. They were seen together at the Sundance Film Festival 2017 with some PDAs.
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However, before her relationship with Ezra Koenig, Rashida Jones was engaged to music DJ and producer Mark Ronson in February 2003 after he proposed to her on her 27th birthday, but the engagement lasted only a year. Among the other notable affairs that Rashida Jones associated with her are Jeremy Renner (before 1997), Tobey Maguire (1997-2000), Seth Meyers (2005), John Krasinski (2005-2006), Charlie Hunnam (2006), Jon Favreau (2009-2010), Garrett Hedlund (2011), Colin Jost (2013-2016).
Rashida Jones And Tupac
Rashida Jones’ relationship (not an affair) with Tupac Shakur began with a bitter tone after the American rapper insulted her father Quincy Jones in an interview with The Source Magazine about his anti-black movement, who only married white women and fathered “fucked-up children”. Rashida, then a 17-year-old girl, came to Tupac and wrote him an open letter. In her letter, she defended her father and beat the rapper because he had no respect for her father and did not realize that her father’s victims had paved the way for him (and other blacks) to speak out in the first instance. The letter was published in the same magazine that granted Pac the interview, and the world marveled at the wisdom of 17-year-old Rashida. This argument would eventually give Tupac access to Rashida’s family, which enabled him to win her as a friend and also to arrange for him to meet her older sister Kidada, with whom he was later engaged until his death.