{"id":69274,"date":"2023-12-09T17:08:12","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T17:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rapidcelnews.com\/?p=69274"},"modified":"2023-12-09T17:08:12","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T17:08:12","slug":"jada-pinkett-smith-reveals-why-shell-never-leave-will-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rapidcelnews.com\/lifestyle\/jada-pinkett-smith-reveals-why-shell-never-leave-will-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Jada Pinkett Smith reveals why she'll never leave Will Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"
When a marriage hits a rocky patch, couples find different ways of bringing back the magic \u2013 date night or perhaps counselling. For Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will, it took a public scandal to reset the relationship.<\/p>\n
\u2018I nearly didn\u2019t even attend the\u00a0Oscars that year, but I\u2019m glad I did,\u2019 says Pinkett Smith. \u2018I call it the \u201choly slap\u201d now because so many positive things came after it.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0She is, of course, referring to the 2022 Oscars, at which her husband had been nominated in the Best Actor category (Will Smith won for his role in the Venus and Serena Williams tennis biopic King Richard<\/span>). The couple were seated in the front row when comedian and host Chris Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith\u2019s shaven head (a result of alopecia). Although at first Smith seemed to laugh, his wife gave an unamused eye-roll. Smith ascended the stage and slapped Rock\u2019s face in front of a global TV audience.<\/p>\n \u2018Keep my wife\u2019s name out of your f****** mouth!\u2019 Smith raged in the deathly silent auditorium. Pinkett Smith reeled. But this was the moment that remade their marriage.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dress, danielwfletcher.com. Gloves, paularowan.com<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top and skirt, philosophyofficial.com. Sandals, jenniferchamandi.com.<\/p>\n \u2018That moment of the s*** hitting the fan is when you see where you really are,\u2019 she says. \u2018After all those years trying to figure out if I would leave Will\u2019s side, it took that slap for me to see I will never leave him. Who knows where our relationship would be if that hadn\u2019t happened?\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0The truth is, their near 30-year union was in crisis. Although in Smith\u2019s Oscars outburst he referred to Pinkett Smith, 52, as his \u2018wife\u2019, it later transpired they had split up six years previously and, as far back as July 2020, the couple had revealed all in a podcast she co-hosted, Red Table Talk<\/span>. In it, Pinkett Smith, with her clearly emotional husband next to her, described their separation and her subsequent \u2018entanglement\u2019 with a troubled young singer\/songwriter, 19 years her junior, called August Alsina. She says she was trying to help him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018This is how a friendship unfolded that, much later and very unexpectedly, turned romantic,\u2019 she writes in her new memoir, Worthy. In the book, Pinkett Smith is so frustrated by the bad press she received, not to mention the sympathy for her ex, that she dreamed of being a werewolf, tearing her husband to shreds and eating him.<\/p>\n Two weeks after our interview, a man claiming to be Will Smith\u2019s former personal assistant said he walked in on the star having sex with actor Duane Martin in a dressing room when they appeared together in The Prince of Bel-Air<\/span> in the early 1990s. Smith has called the claims \u2018unequivocally false\u2019.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u2018I\u2019m not here to discuss Will\u2019s journey,\u2019 she says firmly. \u2018The point is, at the time of my entanglement, Will and I were not together but he just wasn\u2019t ready for our split to be revealed. The reason I addressed it was that the \u201centanglee\u201d had spoken about it [Alsina released a song called \u201cEntanglements\u201d, which includes the lines, \u201cYou left your man just to f*** with me, just to pay him back\u201d] and I wanted to confront that. It was my mess, and I took the bullet for it.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n As Pinkett Smith writes in her memoir, there have been a lot of bullets (real and figurative) flying around her life. The daughter of addict parents, by the time she reached her teens she herself was a gun-carrying drug dealer. The memoir describes her extraordinary journey to Hollywood, where she landed major roles in films including The Nutty Professor,\u00a0The Matrix Reloaded<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and Collateral<\/span>.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jada with Will and Trevor Noah at the 2022 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, following Will\u2019s Best Actor win \u2013 and the \u2018holy slap\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jada in the 1970s with her mother Adrienne, then a nurse.<\/p>\n Pinkett Smith first encountered her future husband in 1994 while auditioning for a guest-star role in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air<\/span>. \u2018What\u2019s up?\u2019 Smith asked her off-camera. She says she barely acknowledged him. Their next encounter was on an LA shopping trip. Her mother was with her and she recognised the star in a department store. \u2018Why can\u2019t you be with somebody nice like him?\u2019 she asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Pinkett Smith thought Smith was too \u2018cheerful\u2019. \u2018Yeah, I was like, \u201cWhy does this dude find everything so funny?\u2019\u2019\u2019 she says today. \u2018When you\u2019re carrying a burden from your childhood, it\u2019s sometimes hard to understand other people\u2019s joy.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n We are meeting in a photo studio in central London. Pinkett Smith looks tiny in a bulky white Tom Ford puffer jacket and Russell tracksuit bottoms. She proudly shows me her New Balance trainers from a range designed by her son Jaden. \u2018My children have been so supportive,\u2019 she says (as well as Jaden, 25, there is Willow, 23, and the young man she calls her \u2018bonus son\u2019 Trey, 30, from Smith\u2019s previous marriage to actress Sheree Zampino). \u2018But I had to do a lot to become the mother I wanted to be.\u2019<\/p>\n When they married in 1997, she and Will Smith appeared to have everything. He had courted Pinkett Smith by whisking her away on a private jet to Mexico, Jamaica and Aspen, then gifting her jewellery and cars. She was already a star and Smith was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood (he reportedly received $40 million for his role in King Richard) and, until recently, they lived together in a $42 million mansion in Calabasas, California.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dress, lanvin.com<\/p>\n And yet Worthy <\/span>opens 14 years into their marriage with Pinkett Smith aged 40 planning to take her own life by driving off a cliff. \u2018My thinking was, \u201cI\u2019m sorry sir\/ma\u2019am but in our relationship you can no longer be human\u201d,\u2019 she writes.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u2018That passage was tough for my friends to read,\u2019 she says now. \u2018They now know that they were by my side while I was thinking, \u201cThis suicide has to look like an accident so the children aren\u2019t traumatised \u2013 and I don\u2019t just want to be injured, it has to be final\u201d. And when Will read that part, he was like, \u201cDamn!\u2019\u2019\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Her three children must have been shocked to read how unhappy she was, I say. \u2018They already knew. I know there are pros and cons to a parent being honest, but my parenting is very open. I\u2019ve always said to my children, \u201cI\u2019m your mother but I\u2019m also a human being\u201d.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Before reaching that nadir, Pinkett Smith had already tried an astonishing array of therapies and pick-me-ups to assuage her mental torment: solo backpacking, \u2018goddess gatherings\u2019, meditation \u2013 even golf. \u2018Tiger Woods taught me,\u2019 she says. \u2018He\u2019s a very good coach. A spiritual connection isn\u2019t just about meditation and saying \u201cOmmmmmm\u201d, it can be about connecting with a ball.\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0But it was a friend recommending ayahuasca, a plant-derived psychoactive drink believed to have therapeutic properties, that really saved her, although her four-day \u2018trip\u2019 was initially terrifying. After accepting the \u2018aya\u2019 drink from a medicine woman, Pinkett Smith was first confronted with her own suicidal voices, then believed herself to be walking through a jungle filled with snakes. By the fourth day, though, she says she experienced something incredible.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u2018And I never felt suicidal again,\u2019 she tells me. \u2018\u2018\u2018Plant therapy\u201d breaks down the trivial concerns of the ego. It allowed me to experience incredible universal love and made me the mother I wanted to be.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier this year, she, Will Smith, their children and some friends underwent an ayahuasca experience together. \u2018The children loved it,\u2019 she says. \u2018Trey is into it the most \u2013 he\u2019s on a real spiritual quest.\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0In his memoir, Spare, Prince Harry described taking \u2018psychedelics\u2019 and in an interview said they were \u2018fundamental\u2019 to helping him deal with \u2018the traumas of the past\u2019. The Smith family home is an hour away from Harry and Meghan\u2019s in Montecito. Are they the friends she does it with?<\/p>\n \u2018No, but I didn\u2019t know they did that. Good for them!\u2019 To be fair, there is no suggestion Meghan has tried them. But can a psychedelic experience really fix a relationship? Pinkett Smith\u2019s choice of men is a theme of Worthy<\/span>. She says she likes \u2018artists\u2019, \u2018roughneck bad boys\u2019, \u2018intellectuals\u2019 and what she calls \u2018in bed guys\u2019. What category does her husband fall into?<\/p>\n \u2018Oh, Will is all of those things,\u2019 she swoons. \u2018He\u2019s got it all.\u2019 The slap certainly seems to have revived things. Two weeks before we meet, the couple and their children appeared together at a publicity event in Baltimore for Worthy<\/span>. Will Smith applauded the book and jokingly described their marriage as \u2018brutiful\u2019 (a mix of brutal and beautiful). Pinkett Smith is already planning a follow-up. No prizes for guessing who her co-author will be.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Willow, Trey, Jaden and Will in Baltimore, 2023.<\/p>\n \u2018Will and I plan [to write] a book together called Don\u2019t Try This at Home<\/span>,\u2019 she chuckles. \u2018He has been on a journey. I have been on a journey. We want to write something where he puts the male side, I put the woman\u2019s side and then these universal issues are resolved.\u2019<\/p>\n Despite an estimated family fortune of more than $350 million, Pinkett Smith now leads the life of what she calls an \u2018urban nun\u2019. She often forswears sex, alcohol, shopping and entertainment depicting violence. She spends time meditating or reading passages from the Bible, Koran or Bhagavad Gita. \u2018The simple life is best,\u2019 she says. \u2018When you simplify your interior landscape, you need less.\u2019<\/p>\n This is quite the change. In Worthy<\/span>, before her spiritual journey begins, she sounds rather high maintenance. In fact, when I heard Pinkett Smith was in town, my first concerns were for the concierge at her hotel. In 1999, President Clinton invited the Smiths to stay at the White House for a lavish star-studded millennium celebration. He even offered them Abraham Lincoln\u2019s old bedroom, and Gianni Versace agreed to provide new outfits. But Pinkett Smith didn\u2019t want to go, complaining to her husband about being assigned Abraham Lincoln\u2019s \u2018dusty-ass bedroom\u2019.<\/p>\n Is that true or was she really upset about something else? \u2018No, it was just dusty,\u2019 she shrugs. \u2018I had this new baby [Jaden was one at the time] and it was too much. I think a lot of women will relate to that. A lot of men, like Will, have this attitude, \u201cWe have to go out there and seize life!\u201d They need heightened experiences to turn into stories. I don\u2019t blame him \u2013 Will loves telling a good story. But sometimes women just want to connect.\u2019<\/p>\n The couple may be fixing their marriage, but Pinkett Smith recently moved out of the Calabasas mansion and bought a house nearby. Her eyes light up when I mention it.<\/p>\n \u2018The best thing is I don\u2019t need to say to Will, \u201cAre you OK with this couch?\u201d. I got one that\u2019s cream patent leather but with gold studs on it. That expresses the heavy-metal side to me.\u2019<\/p>\n It makes sense. Twenty-one years ago, Pinkett Smith dabbled with being a rock star and in 2004 her band Wicked Wisdom even toured with Britney Spears. Curiously, both women have just published memoirs revealing their unhappiness with celebrity and their complicated relationships with men.<\/p>\n \u2018I think Britney\u2019s story and my story speak to people because women want to define themselves on their own terms, not just in relation to men,\u2019 she says. \u2018 Why do you think<\/p>\n I bought myself a \u201cwoman cave\u201d? Every woman needs a woman cave!\u2019<\/p>\n How did the children react to her move?<\/p>\n \u2018They knew I needed it. And besides, they are adults now. They know where to find me. They all have their own keys \u2013 even Will.\u2019<\/p>\n Worthy <\/span>is full of references to Hollywood\u2019s \u2018gilded cage\u2019 and we are talking the day after Friends <\/span>star Matthew Perry was found dead at home. Are wealth and fame really so awful?<\/p>\n \u2018They\u2019re not awful but our perceptions of what they can deliver are unrealistic,\u2019 she says. \u2018I mean, kale can be disastrous if it\u2019s all you eat, but it\u2019s also good stuff. We just need to amend what wealth and celebrity mean for the soul.\u2019<\/p>\n Christmas is coming. In the old days that would have entailed Pinkett Smith having to organise huge showbiz parties. Not any more.<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ve learnt to say no. Me, Will, the kids and some friends will head to a snowy location. It\u2019ll be simple. Like a lot of women, I feel, \u201cWhat do we have when we strip away the nonsense and it\u2019s just us?\u201d I think that\u2019s universal.\u2019<\/p>\n She recently told a journalist that another reason for fixing her marriage was that her husband is getting old and needs looking after. Will Smith is 55. Is he unwell?<\/p>\n \u2018No, I was trying to be funny. But we are both getting older. And besides, we\u2019ve been together 30 years so, even if someone new came along, neither of us is going anywhere. We are a family that needs to look out for one another and always will be. Sometimes it takes a crisis for you to see that.\u2019<\/p>\n Worthy <\/span>by Jada Pinkett Smith is published by 4th Estate. \u00a325. To order a copy for \u00a321.25 until 24 December, go to mailshop.co.uk\/books or call 020 3176 2937. Free UK delivery on orders over \u00a325.<\/span><\/p>\n Styling: Sophie Dearden<\/p>\n Styling assistant: Jessica Carroll<\/p>\n Picture Director: Ester Malloy\u00a0<\/p>\n Make-up: Liz Pugh at Premier using Tatcha\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n