“Here we go,”Jada Pinkett Smithwhispers to herself.
The Los Angeles photo studio is quiet. Jada is about to speak about her life. And what a life it has been up to this point. From the streets of Baltimore where she sold drugs, to the zenith of Hollywood.
And it’s there, right at the very height of moviedom, front row at the Academy Awards in 2022, where she watched her husbandWill SmithslapChris Rockon the Oscar stage, on live television after Rock made a joke about Jada’s shaved head (she lives with alopecia).
Well, that’s what the silence is about. She gets it. Jada knows everyone has been waiting 18 months for her to say something. Here it is.
But Jada, as she details in her book, had quite a life before March 27, 2022. Perhapslivesis a better way to put it. “I was living a lot of them at one time.”
Jada Pinkett Smith.Obidigbo Nzeribe
Obidigbo Nzeribe
Of course, along the way, shemet a hot young actor named Will. After meeting multiple times in passing — and once he got divorced from his first wife Sheree Zampino — he called Jada and asked, “Who are you going out with?” Replying that she was single, Will declared: “Well, you’re going out with me now.”
Laughing at the recollection, Jada says, “Can you believe I fell for that?”
Her life has been filled with immense highs (touring with her band Wicked Wisdom, the births of her two children, her “bonus son” Trey from Will’s first marriage, creating the talk showRed Table Talk) and lows and even lower lows, she says. And yet, she says it’s at the lowest part where she began to find clarity.
“When I turned 40, I was in so much pain. I couldn’t figure a way out besides death. So I made a plan.”
Jada is aware of how her life looked from the outside, especially about a decade ago. The glamour and the smiles, the mansion, gowns and movie premieres. The “they have it all” of it all. “But, while I was really living the dream, I hit a huge wall — a massive amount of depression. I think that I looked at having outside sources to supplement for the voids that I was feeling inside.”
She said the “voices” were incoming. “‘Just kill yourself. You’re not worth anything, you ain’t s—.’ ”Jada began to plot her death. “I started looking for places, cliffs where I could have anaccident, because I didn’t want my kids to think that their mother had committed suicide.”
Jada says a chance conversation in her own kitchen provided a glimmer of hope. Friends of her sonJadenmentioned that their dad had gone through an ayahuasca ceremony, where a leader supplies a plant-based psychedelic drug, usually brewed into a tea to drink, and guides the subject through hallucinations.
“Ayahuasca helped me, it gave me a new intimate relationshipwith myself that I had never had before.” Jada says since the first time she took the drug, “the suicidal thoughts completely went away.”
Jada says her husband and children — “as adults” — have also taken ayahuasca. She knows that her family life, and in particular her marriage, are a topic of fascination for many people. She remembers how they first got together.
“Will called me up one day and said, ’Hit me when you get to L.A.’ and then … click. And I was like, ‘Whoa. Okay.’ And so when I got to L.A., I called him. I haven’t been able to get rid of him since.”
For more on Jada Pinkett Smith, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
“We’re still figuring it out,” Jada says of the state of their marriage. She says they had been separated for six years before the Oscars in 2022. “We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”
As for her kids: “My children, they’re little gurus. They’ve taught me a deep sense of self-acceptance.”
“They love every part of me,” she says ofJaden, 25, Willow, 22, and Trey, 30. “The level of love, unconditional love that they have for me and their dad. And it’s one thing to want to be the person that gives that unconditional love. And then there’s, to be the recipient of that.”
Trey, Willow, Jaden, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith on Nov. 30, 2022.Amy Sussman/WireImage
Amy Sussman/WireImage
Jada remembers the moment Jaden saved her life. “I’ve learned how to tune into each one of them and understand their superpowers. And so when Jaden came to me that day and he’s like, ‘Mom, you got to to hear this. My friend’s dad, he had this experience. I need you to come in here and listen.’ I’m like, ‘I’m there. What is it?’ And it opened up a whole new world of healing that I’m so grateful for.”
source: people.com
