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Jada Pinkett Smith gave a lengthy interview to the New York Times this weekend to promote her memoir, Worthy<\/em>. The NYT\u2019s piece was actually quite thoughtful and they didn\u2019t tabloidize some of the darker elements of Jada\u2019s life, which is sort of what happened with her People Magazine cover story. Jada\u2019s in full promotional mode and she has talking points, which is why some of the quotes sound familiar – she\u2019d already said the same stuff to Today and People. Still, I enjoyed reading a more in-depth piece with Jada. Some highlights:<\/p>\n When Will Smith called her his \u201cwife\u201d at the 2022 Oscars:<\/strong> \u201cEven though we hadn\u2019t been calling each other husband and wife in a long time, I said, \u2018I\u2019m his wife now. We in this.\u2019 That\u2019s just who I am. That\u2019s the gift I have to offer, like, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m riding with you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Smith and Rock had decades of disrespect between them, starting in the late 1980s:<\/strong> \u201cI didn\u2019t judge Chris, I didn\u2019t judge Will. I was like, \u2018Oh, this is a spiritual clash.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Why she stood by Will that night:<\/strong> He was in tremendous pain, and fragile, Pinkett Smith said. He had recently finished filming \u201cEmancipation,\u201d a hellish Civil War-era drama that was psychologically tormenting for Smith, who plays an enslaved man. \u201cI knew in my heart that he needed me by his side more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Her reaction – to roll her eyes – at Chris Rock\u2019s joke:<\/strong> \u201cIt was easy to spin the story of how the perfect Hollywood megastar had fallen to his demise because of his imperfect wife. Blaming the woman is nothing new\u2026How is it that a woman can be so irrelevant and culpable at the same time? I had to think about the narrative out there of me as the adulterous wife, who had now driven her husband to madness with the command of one look. I had to take responsibility for my part in aiding that false narrative\u2019s existence. I also had to chuckle at the idea that the world would think I wielded that amount of control over Will Smith. If I had that amount of control over Will, chile, my life would have been entirely different these damn near three decades. Real talk!\u201d<\/p>\n The state of her marriage:<\/strong> They are not in an open marriage, nor are they uncoupled, polyamorous or divorced. They are something else altogether: life partners in family and business, long maintaining an agreement they call \u201ca relationship of transparency.\u201d In recent years, they\u2019ve lived separately. As a 50th birthday present to herself, she bought her own place, moving out of their Calabasas compound\u2026.Pinkett Smith, in pursuit of \u201cclarity and emotional sobriety,\u201d became what she calls an \u201curban nun of sorts.\u201d She meditates and reads texts like the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran or the Bible daily, and abstains from sex, alcohol, violent entertainment and unnecessary spending.<\/p>\n On Tupac:<\/strong> \u201cPac\u2019s whole thing was because I knew him when \u2014 when he wasn\u2019t Tupac. The guy who was poor, the conditions that he lived in. And I was rocking with him anyway.\u201d In \u201cWorthy,\u201d she reveals that he\u2019d proposed to her in a letter while incarcerated at Rikers in the mid-1990s for groping a fan. \u201cDid Pac love me? Yeah he loved me! But I promise you, had we got married, he\u2019d have divorced my ass as soon as he walked through them damn gates and got out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [From The NY Times]<\/p>\n Jada\u2019s description of her life now is kind of the dream, right? She\u2019s still married, she still has some kind of love for and partnership with Will, but she has carved out her own space, her own home, her own rules for existing and healing. I get that there\u2019s some outrage at Will and Jada for \u201clying\u201d about their marriage, but my view is that they\u2019ve both always been pretty open about the fact that their marriage has struggled a lot in the past decade or longer, but it\u2019s also clear that they still love each other. They don\u2019t have to define it, especially since they\u2019re still figuring out their sh-t. Now, if I was in charge of their lives? Sure, I would tell them to just get divorced, get things settled and then continue to be friends and continue to love each other. But they\u2019ve got their own thing.<\/p>\n Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.<\/small><\/p>\n\n
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