Was Government Official Jerry Foxhoven Forced To Resign For Loving Tupac Too Much?

IOWA CITY, IA — Iowa’s Director of the Department of Human Services (DHS) has reportedly stepped down after mass-emailing Tupac Shakur lyrics to more than 4,300 government employees on June 14.

In addition, during his previous two years with the agency, the director reportedly sent 350 more emails related to the late rapper. Shakur was fatally gunned down at age 25 in 1996, a murder case that is still unsolved.

Jerry Foxhoven, a self-described “66-year-old white guy,” was reportedly “ordered to resign,” according to The New York Times, but the die-hard fan of Tupac said he doesn’t believe it was over his love of the fallen hip-hop icon.

Instead, Foxhoven said, Governor Kim Reynolds had requested a meeting with him days before his last Tupac shout-out, and that DHS directors typically don’t serve long terms. Foxhoven added that he agreed to step down.

In addition to his emails, Foxhoven reportedly held listening parties in his office on what he called “Tupac Fridays.”

Foxhoven’s final Tupac email was reportedly sent to commemorate two milestones: the director’s own two-year anniversary with the Iowa DHS, and Shakur’s birthday on June 16.

Addressing more than 4,300 DHS workers in the email, Foxhoven reportedly quoted the lyrics, “Pay no mind to those who talk behind your back, it simply means that you are 2 steps ahead.”

While “at least one” recipient of Foxhoven’s Tupac missives reportedly complained to higher-ups, others said they reacted positively and some employees even shared birthday cookies with the director that were emblazoned with Shakur’s image and signature sayings, such as “Thug Life.”

A response from one recipient of the June 14 email reportedly declared, “I love your 2pac messages . . . and the fact that you still send them (despite the haters) makes me appreciate them even more.”

Addressing the staff change, governor’s office spokesman Pat Garrett told the press, “A lot of factors contributed to the resignation of Jerry Foxhoven and now Governor Reynolds is looking forward to taking DHS in a new direction.”

Ultimately, Foxhoven told a reporter that he dispatched the Tupac messages to “reach out to our staff, tell them that I’m human, have a little levity.”

For more on Tupac Shakur, watch the "Death of a Warrior Poet" episode of Investigation Discovery's Vanity Fair Confidential on ID GO now!

Read more: The New York Times, AP News, Daily Beast, The Washington Post, Consequence of Sound, Fox News