The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Jada Pinkett Smith (EXCLUSIVE): “I just wanted to stay ALIVE until 4pm!”, “Me & Will Are NOT Together”, “Tupac Kissed Me TWICE!”

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

If you enjoy hearing about the hidden side of Hollywood, I recommend you check out my conversation with Cole Sprouse, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPup-1pDepY Drug dealer, Hollywood star, wife, mother, icon. Jada Pinkett Smith is dismantling her defences and revealing all. In this new episode Steven sits down with global superstar, Jada Pinkett Smith. Jada Pinkett Smith is an American actor who has appeared in films such as, ‘The Nutty Professor’, ‘Magic Mike XXL’ and ‘The Matrix Resurrections’. She is the co-host of the talk show ‘Red Table Talk’, and was named as one of Time magazines’ 100 Most Influential people in 2021. In this conversation Jada and Steven discuss topics, such as: How drugs were here parents priority Taking to the streets to find her identity and self-worth Being told by her father that he couldn’t be her father Using acting and art as an outlet and a way to escape Acting as a way to escape The domestic violence she experienced Wanting to be a hustler and big time drug dealer Drug dealing as a teenager Trying to created herm own safety, security and protection Growing up in a ‘war zone’ and getting used to violence and vigilance Getting a gun pointed to her head at 17 years old Being ‘out of her mind’ and fearless Coming to Hollywood in survival mode Being misunderstood all her life Never feeling as if you have ‘arrived’ and wanting to be loved Meeting Tupac at 14 years old Kissing Tupac and their relationship The greatness of Tupac Meeting Will Smith for the first time How Will Smith taught her never judge a book by its cover Having a mental breakdown and wanting to die Buying a farmhouse to escape Hollywood to build a quiet life Seeing Tupac in Rikers Island prison The last time she ever saw Tupac Still working out her relationship with grief Feeling spiritually bankrupt at the peak of her success Abandoning herself to Will Smith’s dreams The flaws of the romantic dream Being told by Will to go make herself happy Detoxing her need for outside validation and perfection Waking up everyday and just trying to make it to 4pm Planning her suicide to look like an accident Feeling as if she was born broken ‘The Slap’ and taking the blame for events Why ‘The Slap’ was never about her You can purchase Jada’s new memoir, ‘Worthy’, here: https://bit.ly/3S0co4z Follow Jada: Instagram: https://bit.ly/46vt340 Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RSjGYo Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. I was in a cycle of self hatred. And it was just a really dark time. I went out, and I knew I had to make it look like an accident, because I did not want my kids to think that I had committed a s*** lie. Please welcome Jada Pinkett Smith! Jada, I knew you as a Hollywood actress. I never knew you were the daughter of two drug-addicted parents and a teenage drug dealer yourself on the streets of Baltimore. I really thought I was going to be the next big-time female drug dealer.

I was absolutely fearless. But getting two 9mms pointed at you... They pointed two guns at you. That's a big wake-up call. What happened? Somebody set me up. And then... I had to always have this tough exterior

Now As I'm dismantling my defenses I'm in a really wrong place The holy slap What happened? I knew I was going to get blamed But like It was insane

You say protection is your love language Did you see that as an act of love? The entanglement conversation. We broke up. And then what did you do, Jada? My mother, my kids, they were like, how could you do this? Do you regret putting that out? Honestly?

I've got this wonderful picture that I found. Oh, I know that picture. Do you know why this is relevant? I let it go back to when we played as kids. Yeah, I lost them back to back. Ada. Yes. I always believe that in order to understand someone,

you have to understand their context. And having read through the entirety of your book, there was this line that stood out to me, which I think might summarize the most important part of your earliest context, which is, when I go in search of the origins of my broken heart, it is the sense of not being the priority to the two people who gave me life that creates a fracture in my feeling of worth. Why did you write that line? Because it's true. You know, it's like our parents are like our first mirrors.

And so my parents were really young when they had me. I mean, my mom was 17, right? 17, 18. She was 17 when she was pregnant. I think she was 18 by young when they had me. I mean, my mom was 17, right? 17, 18. She was 17 when she was pregnant. I think she was 18 by the time she had me. So youth on top of addiction. And I just realized, you know, as I was going through my life in different therapeutic settings, I was like, oh, wow. Like the first mirror I had

was kind of non-existent in a way because drugs were my parents' priority, you know, during my upbringing. And so I didn't really get the reflection of feeling like a priority to the people who brought me into the world. Now, thank goodness my grandmother came into the picture, you know, and she really she was a beautiful, powerful mirror for me that, you know, even to my, you know, it's still a mirror for me to this day where I could see myself. I could see the beauty of myself. I could see my gifts and my talents was through her and what she was reflecting back to me. But I think it's important that, I think it's important if it's possible for children to feel that sense of importance, that sense of priority from their parents.

I had an air of sort of loneliness as I read through the pages. This kind of lonely young girl who was searching to be recognized and loved and someone to sort of hold her hand and guide her through those early years and other than in your grandmother's garden with your grandmother it it found like that place of home was never was never really there yeah I definitely had it with my grandmother now once she passed that's when I took to the streets to figure out finding my home, finding my tribe, finding my power, finding my identity, finding my purpose, finding my worth. Yeah. Your dad, Rob. Yeah. worth yeah your dad mm-hmm Rob yeah he um he took you for a walk one day and

explained to you why he couldn't be your father he did I was seven and he just said he said look I'm a I'm an addict and a criminal and I can't be your father. And I was like, now mind you, he hadn't really been in my life that much anyway. I didn't really know. He wasn't present in my, in my life enough for me to even know what it was like to have a father. But what I did appreciate in that moment was like, wow, just thank you. Thank you for like being honest. Now, I didn't realize at that time because I was so young how that would affect my relationships with men ongoing, you know, as an adult woman. But yeah, in that moment, I was just like, thank you.

Somebody is like being honest with me. I'm not crazy. Something is absolutely not right here. And he's letting me know what that is. And he's saying, hey, I'm going to keep my distance, you know. 10 years old, 12, 13 years old, what does Jada think she's going to be when she grows up? At 10, 11, 12, 13 I definitely was like I wanted to be an artist definitely wanted to be an actress. You wanted to be an actress? Yeah I did I did I wanted to be an actress I started very young I was doing theater I think my first professional gig was like seven years old as one of Madame Bon Bon's children in the Nutcracker. And then I was in different theatrical programs in the summertime and what have you. the uh when i got the opportunity to join twigs which prepared you for baltimore school for the

arts i joined that after school program so arts has always been a big part of my life do you know why because when i read through those early years of your life it seemed that acting was doing something the the performance the being on stage the the validation I think it was giving you was doing something for you that it might not have done for someone else who hadn't walked the steps you'd walked up until that point the validation but also an outlet it was a real outlet for me where I was able to express certain feelings that I didn't feel like I had the permission to express at home. And it was a huge, it was a huge outlet for me in that way. I mean, to the point that my theater teachers would often tell me, you know, they'd try to steer me into like, why don't you try more comedic

roles? You know, I was always going for the very dramatic, very highly emotional, you know, roles. And I just remember my theater teachers always trying to guide me into diversifying the monologues that I would choose for my pieces to work on in class. I read some books. I think one of them was called The Body Holds the Score, which talks about the role that acting can play as sort of a therapy. And it's so, it seems to not be a coincidence that the amount of actors I've sat here and spoke with who have pretty unthinkable early childhood experiences, domestic violence in the home, etc., that then find acting as an outlet for a form of escapism, almost escaping the identity, embodying a different role. Absolutely. Totally agree. Totally agree. As I read it in your story, was like not another one yes another one it's classic yeah and i reflect on some of the words you wrote in the early part of the book where you're talking about your mother and your father there being domestic

violence in the home at an early age, your mother running out of the house, dropping you on the floor because Rob had punched her. I believe your father had punched her. Yeah. These are stories I guess you've heard after the fact from your mother. Yeah.

But I guess you believe those moments leave a mark. Absolutely. I mean, my mother talks about it to this day and we'll choke up. But I guess you believe those moments leave a mark. Absolutely. I mean, my mother talks about it to this day and will choke up. She'll, you know, cry. You don't get over things in the sense of like it's forgotten. You know, you learn to cope with it. You heal in a certain manner. But it still can leave a certain imprint upon you.

And even hearing those stories are not easy, you know, even as an adult, because she didn't really give me the details until I was. I mean, my kids would dag on their adults before she shared with me the level of violence that she dealt with with my dad. Did it help you understand yourself? Did it help you connect dots? I don't know if it helped me understand myself as much as it helped me understand my mother. And then that helped me understand a lot of how her journey has imprinted upon me in a certain manner you know so i guess it does if

you take you know through through my mother and her journey helped me understand her journey which has affected me so yeah i guess you could say that it helped me understand myself more i say that because i sat with um you know gabble matty yeah i do yeah yes he was the he's the person that opened my eyes to the fact that even the I say that because I sat with, you know, Gabor Mate. Yeah, I do. Yeah, yes, yes. He's the person that opened my eyes to the fact that even the things that occurred when we are babies, we interpret them to mean certain things about ourselves. And he says babies are incredibly selfish. So, for example, if the parents are arguing, the baby will interpret that as a reflection of them.

I think about the early context that I think I read about in your story, but also that appears in mine and how I interpreted that to mean that I wasn't enough in some way. Yeah. Which is a real through line throughout your story. Yeah, for sure. And I think that probably is probably more subconscious, unconscious than that which the attention, more power, more influence than me? To the point that your father will tell you, I'm relinquishing my parental rights because I'd rather be a criminal and a drug addict than try to get my shit together

for you is the way I interpreted that and at the same time I was like just thank you for being honest instead of sitting up here pretending like you're doing something different thank you you know

which a lot of people would do Tony was he your mother's first partner after Rob? No, he was her first husband. First husband, okay. Yeah, after Rob. And he seemed to be a pretty solid father figure. He's a solid, yeah, he was.

He was indeed. This guy comes into your life and plays the role of a father by all accounts he seems to do a pretty good job and seems to love on you in a way that is sufficient for a child but then he too vanishes out of your life makes a exit makes an exit yeah which i understand you know as an adult now looking back and looking at the circumstances you know know, he did the best that he could. He's a man that was trying to get his life together. And my mother was deep in her addiction.

Addiction to? Heroin at that time. And so you can't negotiate with that. It's either you want to get help, you know, or you have to, sometimes you have to make clean breaks. I know that now as an adult. And you don't always know how to play the middle, you know. And so I get it.

What does that do to you as a young woman who's trying to figure out what where safety is it's devastating it's devastating I mean I completely abandoned feeling like I could depend on anyone which is why I just took to the streets I was like, you know what? I'm going to figure out how to make money, gain power, and create a situation where I can protect myself and my mother. And to make sure just in case she doesn't make it, I'm going to be okay. You take to the streets. When you say take to the streets, what do you mean by that? When I would see, you know, the high rollers, the hustlers, I was like, oh, that's what I want. You know, I want to have the Mercedes. I want to have big wads of cash in my pocket. I want to have friends around me that will protect me. And I want to be able to have security and stability created by my own hands. I don't want to depend on anybody. Not only do I not want to depend on

anybody, I can't depend on anyone. And so the streets, that's where I saw security. Because we didn't have doctors and lawyers, you know, to look upon, you know, like that's the aspiration, right? Because in our neighborhoods, that's what we had. We had hustlers, right? And they had the good life. So you could be a hustler or you could be a hustler's girlfriend. I wasn't trying to be the girl. I wasn't trying to be the girlfriend.

And so I'd look to to that lifestyle to offer me the security that I didn't have at home as an opportunity for me to create that security that I didn't have at home as an opportunity for me to create that security that I didn't have at home. Security, protection, safety.

These are all words that appear over and over and over again in your book. I know, right? Yeah. From childhood to adulthood, those are the most recurring words and you you found that security in part through a lifestyle of drug dealing yourself um which again i said to you before we started recording jada that i knew of you as a hollywood actress you know that's what i that's what i knew of you of i'm not someone that's hugely involved in media or tv or movies so that's what i thought i never in my life and i thought of you as the daughter of two um drug addicted parents who had chosen their addiction

over you and i never knew that you started dealing drugs when you were very, very young. Were you not scared dealing drugs in Baltimore? You don't have time to be scared. That environment was a war zone, right? And so it's like stuff was popping off all the time. So you just get used to a certain level of violence. You get used to a certain level of just vigilance because that's what you're given. So you just learn to adapt to that kind of environment. So the levels, what somebody might consider dangerous for me was just normal.

It wasn't like, ooh, I'm going into something crazy here. It's like, shit, everything's crazy. So what? So I look at it now and I go, what in the world? But I'm living a different reality. In that time when I was living that reality, that's what life was. And everybody, that's what we were all living. Was there moments that were wake up calls? Hell yeah. When you were dealing jokes. Listen,

getting two nine millimeters pointed at you at one time, one to your head, that's a, that you would think that's a big wake-up call jada we don't all know what nine millimeters oh you know i guns you know it's two big guns you know when did that happen um i had to be be 17 17 17 years old because that was my senior year of high school and what was the reason that someone pointed two guns at your head i was i had uh posted up in this in the projects and this apartment on the bottom floor where I would sell drugs out of

the window or through the door of that particular apartment. And somebody set me up, to make a long story short, somebody set me up. And as I was making the exchange through the door that had the chain on it, two guys from the side of the door, had the chain on it, two guys from the side of the door, which I couldn't see because I'm looking through the peephole, two guys from the side of the door come around and kick the door in and pull out guns, point them to me, and take all my money, my jewelry, and stash. And I was really lucky to make it out of that alive, for sure,

because the person who led that robbery ended up killing two drug dealers two weeks or a month after. Put them in a trunk, shot the trunk up, and murdered two guys. And he ended up doing life for that. But I could tell as he was leaving, you know, it's so interesting when you're in moments like that. I can still see his eyes as he's leaving me and how he's making a choice in the moment of what he's going to do with me. And by the grace of God, he left me there. Why? Well, when, and of course, you know, my crazy self, because of who, because of the protection that I was under at the time, I called that person.

I was like, I just got robbed. He knew exactly. He knew exactly. He's like, I know who this is. Don't worry about anything. I was like, I want my shit back. And so we actually, that person whose wing I was under, he made for a meeting for us to meet in that area a couple of days later. He was like, you're not going to get your money back. You're not going to get the drugs back.

But maybe there might be some pieces of jewelry of yours that he hasn't know he hasn't sold yet and that's he was exactly right he had you know a couple chains or whatever and I told I asked him I said you know why did you just leave me there like and he said you were too pretty and that was the first time and I talk about this in the book that was the first time that was like, maybe I am pretty because I was like, maybe I am pretty because, you know, he, cause this, this was a stone cold killer. And I talk about even when I met him, how he looked like he, he had never felt any kind of love in his life. And I'm just, I don't know what kind of crazy nut I was at that time. I was just so,

all I could say is just out of my mind. Like I was just in such an alter reality. I really thought I was going to be the next cream pan, first of all. Again, a lot of people don't know what a cream pan is, Jane. Yeah, well, you know, I thought I was going to be the next, you you know like big time female drug dealer you know and i really had i was i was crazy i absolutely was just a nut because i had no fear whatsoever i was absolutely fearless

to be rolling with these wolves like this. And like it was nothing. Like it was absolutely nothing. I think about that today. I think of my daughter. I'm like, what the, like, I don't know. And that's when I know and I think back on everything that I've been through. I was like, there is a God for sure. There is a God for sure. There was a God. Because that dude, for me to even want to see his face again was like,

I want my shit back. And he had it for me. He was like, there you go. But it prepared me for Hollywood. It prepared me. It prepared me big Hollywood. It prepared me. It prepared me big time. It prepared me in a way because I was running with killers. It's as simple as that.

Right? So the Hollywood flex, you know, dudes who were presenting themselves as like these powerful, you know, if you don't do what I say, like, bruh, honestly. It just didn't resonate that way for me. I just looked at it. I looked at all of that as just kind of like puppy play. It didn't resonate with you, but from the words you describe in your book

about how you were received in Hollywood, it appears that you didn't resonate with Hollywood. For a while, I did not. Yeah, for a minute. This rough around the edges. Rough around the edges. Yeah, because I mean, it was part of what was refreshing for a lot of people,

but it was also the thing that was standoffish, too, right? What is that? I think just that edge that I came with, that no, you know, having no fucks to give, basically. It was just like, I'm here to do me. What? You know, and I got something to offer. And if you can't see it, well, then that's on you. You're lost.

You know, just that kind of attitude and just kind of like, you know, I wasn't your prim, proper, demure young lady. You know, it was just kind of like, I was just rough, rugged, and rambunctious. It's isn't it in life how a certain type of demeanor or attitude or mindset can help us to survive and thrive in one context but sometimes we need to figure out how to turn that shit off and that's what I had to learn to do because you weren weren't in survival anymore. I wasn't in survival anymore, you know. And I talk about this in the book, you know, how Warren Beatty, bless him. He was probably one of the first people that was just like, hey, you're in Hollywood now.

Hey, I get it. But why don't you allow people to see some other aspects, that charm you have, that smile you have, like, let's take that, let's take that chip off your shoulder a little bit, you know, and he was the first person really to talk to me in a way that wasn't like making me wrong. Right? He didn't make me wrong. For being who I was. He was just like, there's so much more to you. Like people see that, you know? And that was the first time I actually listened because he didn't make me wrong. And I bet you Warren has no idea that how, how much that conversation and the time that he spent with me really meant to me. It was really awesome because he was so respectful

and he really honored where I sat. You didn't get that often in Hollywood. It was just like, no, you got to change this. You got to do this different. You'll never get jobs like that. I was just like, well, then I won't work because, you know, I was very rebellious sometimes in that way. But yeah, he really, that really stuck with me. And from that day on, I just started on the journey of trying to figure out how to not lose myself, but also feel, find a way to feel safe to take that approach.

Because like I said, I was around wolves all the time. So I had to always be on guard. I had to always have this tough exterior. I always had to carry the attitude like, I'm not the one. You don't want to come over here. It's interesting because when you, putting up such a barrier to defend yourself

can often make us quite hard to form yes yes absolutely the reason i paused there is because i'm thinking about what you said in the book after tony left you he was your mother's new husband he left abruptly abruptly after playing the role of a father. And you said the line about the rejection was brutal. Something broke inside me. My grief was oceanic. I put it on a library shelf labeled unlovable.

And I tried to leave it there. That's another word that comes up over and over again, this word unlovable. And it's funny because when people are, when they feel unlovable themselves they do often put up these walls which make them it's almost like self-fulfilling it's exactly and that's the essence of what i felt in jada when she arrives in hollywood is this person who's got this sort of little bit of a tough exterior up but not because not because she's not

you know yeah not because you know it was really just it was it was so many things i was trying to protect it was defense not offense exactly yeah it was and and i still to this day you know people like you know i still to this day have to like manage that because it's just it's just in me it's just part of me it's something because it was just in me. It's just part of me. Because it was such a... It was something that was built at the foundation. It's in my DNA. Default, isn't it? Yeah, it's my default.

So it's like, and I do it well. I can just, you won't know anything that's going on. But like you said, it's like, well, then you don't give yourself an opportunity to make the connections that you really want to have. And you're going to be misunderstood. Yeah. All the time, which that is like, that has been my life too. Just misunderstood. Another thing I learned from reading the book book which is going to shock you that

i didn't know but this shows how little i am tuned into media and hollywood is your relationship with tupac oh yeah he comes over introduces himself yeah first day of school baltimore school for School for the Arts. And as soon as I walk in, he's holding court. He's holding court. He's a charismatic from day one. He's holding court. And I'm like, who's that peanut head dude over there? And I'm coming in, I'm rocking, I'm Jada. I'm walking in. I got the rat tail. I got the fly clothes, you know. And he turns and we, our eyes just meet. And I'm like, oh. And then, you know, I'm going to hold my court. You know what I'm saying?

And so then he comes over. You know, I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, whatever. And so he comes over and he's like, hey, I'm Tupac. And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, whatever. And so he comes over and he's like, hey, I'm Tupac. And I'm like, Tupac? The name from the gate was just like, never heard a name like that before. That was such a powerful, different name. And I was like, Tupac? And he had this big smile. And I was like, it's not a lot of people that have that kind of like charisma and courage to just walk up on me on just like, I'm Tupac. You know what I mean?

You need to know me, you know? And right from there, inseparable. We became the best of friends from that moment on. We just connected. It was as if we already knew each other. It's crazy. People will find it hard to believe that at that age and that environment, it wasn't a romantic thing. I know.

People have had a really hard time, you know, understanding that. Pac and I had a hard time understanding why it just didn't, we didn't have it. And I talk about it in the book, you know, that being on the back porch of my house and we're like having this discussion. I'm like, OK, Pac, just kiss me. And he kisses me and it's the most disgusting kiss between us both. I mean, he pulled back just like and I pulled back and I was like, see, dummy, you know, and from there it was just like, and then there was one more time

he kissed me and it was just like, and I talk about that in jail when I go to see him in Dannemora. That's a whole nother thing. And once again, it was just like, dude, doesn't work. But throughout our relationship, we definitely had this beautiful closeness that was really intimate, but never physically intimate. A lot of emotional intimacy, a lot of intellectual intimacy. We just knew how to reach each other in ways that was very difficult. We knew how to get around each other's walls. And we didn't get offended when we would fall into our defaults of defense, which could be pretty fierce between the two of us. He was quite a powerhouse. And so was I. We could be very challenging when we got riled up.

So arguments, we were very passionate. But because we were one in the same in that way we kind of understood that language like oh this joke you know what I mean so we didn't get offended a lot until one particular time which comes later in the book yeah when you come from the same place you know the origin stories you don't have that misunderstood yeah talk about because you understand I just understood him I just understood him and he understood me he really got me and he really knew how to pull my coattails in ways that a lot of people didn't and same for me with him I just knew how to reach him

in ways that and and that had everything to and I think because we didn't have that kind of, I think sometimes physical intimacy can really get in the way, you know? And I think that God just made it that way in which God was like, no, no, no, I need you to be, I got a plan. So that's not part of the plan did you know did you in your heart of hearts know that tupac was going to go on to do what he did i knew he was going to go to do something i did not know he would become the Tupac we know him to be. But I knew he was going to do something great. In hindsight, when you look back at who he was, the character traits,

the ingredients that were within him, why did he go on to do what he did? What was it about him? He wore his heart on his sleeve and he could join you. And so what I mean by joining you is that he's not talking at you. He's talking with you. He had a way of being able to speak about subject matters that he's going to sit with you in your broken heart and speak to you from there. Because he knows that broken heart.

He's lived that broken heart. And whether it's your broken heart, whether it's your rage, but he just knew how to penetrate those emotional spaces in people. And that's what I mean by joining you. He knew how to join those emotional spaces in people. And that's what I mean by joining you. He knew how to join you emotionally in so many different verticals of emotion. You know, he was supremely intelligent as well. He was so authentic also and so raw that I think that was really refreshing as well. He gave you him and he was unapologetic. So he's going to give you his intelligence. He's going to give you his fear.

He's going to give you his pain. He's going to give you his anger. He's going to give you his sympathy. He's going to give you his understanding. Right. But it was coming from that, that heart space, that, that, that real space within. It wasn't a gimmick. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to talk about this because this is what's hot. No. You know, right, wrong or indifferent, he gave you his truth. And some truths people could rock with with them and some truths you couldn't. You know what I mean? And but regardless, it was what was real for him at that time. He was always authentic. But it's not easy. It comes with a cost, right? It comes with a cost. Because it's almost the opposite of conformity in a way, authenticity. Yeah, exactly.

And he was a rebel in that way. And I think people really, at points in his career, you know, he could speak, he would speak for the community. And then at points of his career, he would speak from that really intimate place of woundedness. Dear mama. Yeah. You know, there's so many of us related to. Nobody was speaking to us in that way. That could go from ambitions of a rider to shed so many tears to a soldier story.

Come on. Come on. You know, to, I mean, he had so, he could speak to us from so many different angles. That is just the evidence of authenticity, isn't it? Because people are multifaceted in their nature. No one is just ambition of a rider. Yeah. We are just the evidence of authenticity, isn't it? Because people are multifaceted in their nature. No one is just ambition of a ride. Yeah, we are all all the shades, right? But rap, rap music, especially back then, was very narrowing. It was like, this is how to be a rapper. So someone willing to be authentic. It's funny, I've seen this over and over again, they,

they are the most resonant people in the world, because they represent us in a way that a lot of others aren't brave enough to represent us. that's also what vulnerability does yes that's what you do as well in this book well thank you because because you're willing to lay it all out we can relate to many people will be able to relate to many parts of you and you know without books like this we get narrow views and those narrow views i mean those are crafted by other people and they're the least relatable narratives right yeah and we're also multi-dimensional you move to la you're working three jobs you start trying to climb into the ladder of hollywood um at this

point you you meet a certain fresh prince. The savior prince. The savior prince. Yeah. And I was quite shocked by, I think of Will Smith, I think charismatic. He's a good looking guy. Yeah. You didn't seem to think that.

No. No, not at first. Yeah. What did you think at first? I mean, he was the fresh prince. I was like, okay, he's first. Yeah. What did you think at first? I mean, he was the fresh prince. I was like, okay, he's cool. You know, but I was like, not, not, not the guy for me. You know. Why? Was he too soft? I wouldn't say he, I wouldn't say soft. I would just say that he didn't seem deep and I talk about this in the book how at that time a troubled dude seemed deep to me versus just troubled it's like stay away from the troubles

right and so he wasn't troubled it didn't seem to be right and so i was like that's not deep like he just seems like you know just didn't draw me in that way you don't feel the same way anymore though do you know the deep parts oh no he's actually yeah exactly yeah yeah don't judge a book by its cover that's what Will Smith taught me it was like not to judge a book by its cover

and I learned that you know years later when we had an opportunity to have you know we had a mutual friend

and so we were able to share some time at Jerry's Deli over a meal and I got to see a totally different side of him Dwayne Dwayne.

Dwayne Martin. Yeah. Yeah. He went to that jacket potato place. Yeah. The baked potato. What was it about, what did you see in Will that night? I found it really interesting because one of the things that you described seeing in

him was someone who quite was quite adamant in taking over the world. Yeah. So ambitious, you know, and in such a beautiful way. He had big dreams, big dreams. And, and he was so joyful. He was really joyful,

but grounded. And that was the part that I missed. He was grounded. It was grounded. It was like he'd been through some things, and he was really intelligent. So he's what you call, you know, he could go from the hood to the White House

and everywhere in between, right? And I always find people like that fascinating that have a wide range within them, places that they can go. You know, you drop Will anywhere and he's going to figure it out and fit in. He'd asked you to be his on-screen girlfriend, hadn't he? He, okay, yeah yeah so i auditioned for

fresh prince i think it was the second year to pay one of his girlfriends and they were like you're too short i was like all right cool right and so that was the first time that I actually met Will. I came out of the casting and he was, you know, coming into the casting office or about to leave or something. And he was like, hey. And I was like, yeah, what's up? You know, I was like, no need to talk to me. They already said I'm short. Yeah.

So I'm on my way. And then and I think I think I was probably about 20. And he wanted me to play his, you know, his girlfriend as a series regular. So he flew in to North Carolina to meet me. And I was like, nah, I'm going to do movies now.

And he was like, all right, cool. That's a bold, that's a big rejection to reject the fresh Prince of Ballet when he says you can be his sort of recurring onscreen girlfriend in a hit show. And you say, TV's not for me. I'm going to focus on movies. Big call. Well, I had just done it. I had just come off of a different world. And I knew like, I had the protection of Debbie Allen on a different world. Right. And so when I wanted to make moves, Debbie was there to help me. That's not to say that I

would have that same assistance on Fresh Prince. And at that time, they locked you in. You couldn't do anything. You know what I mean? They have you for six years. They got you locked. And I just didn't want to be locked like that. And so I really wanted to try my hand at doing movies. And then Dwayne Martin, when I turned Will down, Dwayne Martin got on me because he felt the same way you did. It was just like, it's financial security. How could you let something like this go and you know who's to say when your next starring move you know role is gonna come in and blah blah blah blah blah and I was like but I'm so glad that I didn't take that

role because I tell you what if I had taken that role Will and I would not have been married and I wouldn't have had Jaden and Willow and Ben trey's bonus mom my life would have been totally different you sure i'm positive yeah as in you're sure that you wouldn't have gotten married i'm positive yeah no you would have seen the red flags listen no yeah no earthquakes are hard to predict sometimes you feel tremors ahead of time often they come on suddenly and in your early 20s you had your first maybe not even your first but what you describe in the book is your first breakdown personal earthquake when you're driving down the street one day mental health and psychiatry have come a long way since then um i i would guess that at the time many people wouldn't have been able to tell you what that was

i had no idea what was going on me just thinking about that moment just it's like um i was so overwhelmed you know and i was like i i didn't know what was going on with me. And it came over me in an instant. I was fine one moment. I'm turning my car around to meet a friend on the corner that, you know, I saw to say and to say hello to her. And all of a sudden, my body's shaking, all these emotions come over me. And I'm like, I'm starting to, it's like waterfall of like tears. And I'm like, and I have no idea, like my brain is not catching up to what is happening with my body. All I know is that this waterfall, this volcano of emotions, it was fear, anger, despair. And I was like, I got, and she was looking at me like, are you okay? And I was like, I don't know.

I, you know, and I get in the car and I'm trying to drive and I'm like, you can't drive. Pull over. And then I pull over, and then I just remember feeling terrified to just let it go, and I let it go. And then I'm like, I want to die. I want to die. And I remember making it home. And all I could do was call my mother and say, you got to come here or I'm going to kill myself. You know, and I think about that and I'm just like, wow. And my mother was like, she was maybe a year into her sobriety right and what a terrifying call to get like if I get that call from Willow or Jaden or Trey I'm just you know it's like and um

so she's figuring out because she just started a job at this hospital. I'm so terrified to be by myself. I call my homegirl MC Light. And I tell her, I'm like, you got to come out here. I'm afraid to be alone by myself. I'm going to do something to myself. And she flies out. And so she holds me down until my mother comes.

It's a crazy moment. Have you figured out what your body was telling you? I think my body was telling me that, I think my mind was telling me, hey, we have some things we got to pay attention to up here. Enough with, let's keep it moving. I'm going to make it so you're not going to just be able to keep it moving anymore. You have some things that you got to pay attention to, some things that need to be addressed. And at the time, like you were just talking about,

nobody was talking about mental health at all. And specifically, mental health was considered like a white people thing. Black people don't have mental health issues. Right? And so suicide for sure was a white people thing. So I was real confused. I felt really, I felt like something has gone really, really, really wrong here. Because nobody else like me feels like this.

Nobody knows what's going on. And maybe I'm losing my mind. I'm actually going crazy. No. So it was a scary time when i read about that it sounded to me like you had been you'd been playing defense for just a little bit too long yeah for sure for sure and that's i guess one of the costs of the toughness right they're like as you say we'll just keep it moving we just keep it moving nobody's immune are they no it's gonna catch you you can deal with it or it will deal with you

those are your choice those are your two choices but you you did keep it moving even in that moment it seemed it seemed like you you carried on with the work um i think you were you were recommended to go and see a psychiatrist, right? Yeah, I went to see a psychiatrist. They put me on Prozac. And I started therapy. I started therapy. But it does still appear that you kept it moving because you kept working.

You didn't seem to want to show anybody outside of your sort of inner circle. Hell no. Why? Absolutely no. Why? Absolutely not. Because that's what we do. We keep it moving. Right? And so I was like,

I got the help that I need. I got a doctor and I'm on Prozac. Right. So I'm like, okay, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and

I can't let anybody know. And we're going to keep this moving because that's what we do. Plaster over cracks. Yeah. We just, at that time, I'm going to take a break because, you know, I'm having, I'm depressed. What? At that time, that seemed absolutely ridiculous do you go back to baltimore i did i went back to baltimore um and because i was going to continue working but not live in la anymore and so i bought a farmhouse hmm I bought a little farmhouse on I want to

say was about six acres my six or nine acres if I remember correctly and it was um I was gonna build a life there for myself a little quiet corner and you know I was like all right oh if I need to audition i'll either go to new york or i can just fly back and forth from la i heard will was trying to hit you up at this this point in your life yeah he hit me up he had just sheree had just sent him divorce papers and um he decides to call me and of course me not knowing anything about marriage, thinking that marriage, you know, breakup of a marriage is like breaking up with a boyfriend. He's like, you know, where are you? And I'm like, I'm in Baltimore, you know, renovating my house.

And he's like, are you seeing anybody? And I'm like, no, he's like, good, anybody and I'm like no he's like good you're seeing me now and I was like what once again that kind of bold you know approach I was just like oh clutch my pearls a little bit so he was like you know call me when you get back to LA so when I got back to LA I called him and we went out on our first date in and around that time pack had been sentenced to rikers right he'd been sentenced sent to jail he'd been sent to at that point in time he was at rikers but then he was on his way to danimura which is a horrific place where they send terrorists yeah usually yeah i think the 9-11 some of the people that were involved with 9-11 or the World Trade Center bombings were sent to Dannemora while he's in jail. While he's in jail. What do you have here? Oh. Yeah. Now as I slip from grace and the world has turned against me, a few claim to have love for me, but once again, you show your love.

After deep reflection and spiritual awakening, I have come to realize the friend, love and soulmate was there all the time. I have not seen or felt from anywhere, anyone, the intensity and loyalty that you have shown me. That is why I want to commit myself to you. I want to marry you.

He sends you that letter. Yeah, it's a much longer letter than that, but that's the words that I put in the book. A marriage proposal. That's while he was in Rikers. When I went to go see him in Rikers, and Rikers is actually... That's a really...

Dannemora might be where they put terrorists. Rikers is like... I remember going to see him there and... He was in such bad shape, you know. And the Rikers, I, like, yeah, Rikers was bad. Dannemora, yeah, terrorists are there, but

far more humane conditions than I would say Rikers. It feels like the emotion is still right on the surface with you when you think back to these moments in your life. Oh, yeah. It feels like I just came back from seeing Pac at Rikers

and I had to leave him there. It was just like yesterday. But I'm also in a very raw place in my life right now as I'm thawing out, as I'm dismantling my defenses. You know, I call it the thaw out. So I'm in a really raw place. Obviously, Pac was, he gets out of jail and Suge Knight. I mean, talking about timing, I think it was like a week ago or two weeks ago that someone's

been convicted for Tupac's murder. A lot of emotions. Yeah. How did you feel when you heard about the um conviction or that's what that arrested an arrest had been made um i was like i was glad that an arrest had been made this was someone who we had known had been in the car he He had done some street interviews about it, you know. And I was just hoping, I was like, well, I hope they're bringing him in because we're going to get some other questions answered.

So, you know, my hope is that we'll get more questions answered. So, you know, my hope is that we'll get more questions answered. In the book, you question, but then you confirm that Pac, Tupac knew how you felt about him when he passed away because you and him hadn't been speaking. No. And I think there's a really important lesson in this for all of us. Yeah. Yeah. We had a huge fight.

Huge. It was one of the biggest fights we had ever had. And it was about how he had been living. You know. and it was about how he had been living you know and uh I really at that time you know really had to let him know my position that I just felt like you know where he was sitting with everything was just it wasn't gonna end up well right and we had a magnanimous. I mean, it was just beyond the two of us just at each other. And I was just like, fuck that. I'm not calling him this time. He's going to have to call me.

He was way out of line. So I really dug my heels in the ground in regards to like, nah. I let my pride, I let my ego come in. I really took for granted that he would be living forever. Like he had already survived so much. Like it never, like I never, I looked at Pac as being invincible at this point, you know, because he survived so much, even so much that people don't know about, you know. But just like I say in the book, I'm like, man, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't hold on to, like, that prideful part of yourself, you know,

with someone you really care about. Like, no, he don't have to call me. You know, it's like, no. Was that the last time you spoke to him? That was the last time I spoke to him. That was the last time I spoke to him. That was the last time I spoke to him. That was the last time I spoke to him. And you know what's crazy?

It meant absolutely nothing. It meant absolutely nothing. And so that's the test I always have. I'm like, okay, you're in this beef with somebody. Will this beef matter on your deathbed? And then right away, I'm like, nope, let me give him a call. You know what I'm saying? That's my test.

Almost a year later, he gets shot in Las Vegas. You get a phone call while you're filming on set that he's, I believe, from his mother, Nafini Shakura, and saying that he's in hospital in a coma. And a few days after that, you find out that he's passed away. Yeah, I was on my way.

You know, Faye was like, no rush. He's going to be fine. He had his fiance there with him and his family. She was like, so, you know, come after your trip in New York. So I was on my way to him. And my girlfriend, Fawn, came to the door. I knew as soon as I saw her face that he was gone. Oh, I know that picture.

Yep, that was Thanksgiving. He came to la to spend thanksgiving with me and we were at one of my friends house you look like brother and sister yeah we look like brother and sister because that's what we were yeah he came to thanksgiving to spend thanksgiving with me we talked about mental health earlier. Do you know how to grieve someone, the loss of someone like that in your life? No, I'm still working out my relationship with grief, actually. Yeah, I haven't really. Yeah, I'm still working that out

because this chapter of your life was loss unmourned loss chapter 12 of your book i've got this other picture that i found that i thought was um relevant oh now you do you know why this is relevant i do maxine and tupac are both in the same picture yeah Do you have a tissue? Thanks. Thanks. You give nice hugs um

yeah that's uh yeah Sorry. Who is it? Yeah, I lost Maxine and Pac back to back. So I liked it, you know, this picture to be flanked by them. Yeah, I lost them back to back. Maxine was a good friend of yours. Pac was your brother.

Yeah, and she was like my sister you know she um I met Maxine on Jason's Lyric and uh we became like super tight

and she lived in Canada and so she wanted to come to Hollywood and make a career for herself. So I told her that she could come live with me. So she came to live with me. We feel as though she had a misdiagnosis, that she had some kind of thyroid disorder that really um disrupted her

psyche and she ended up jumping off her mother's balcony committed she committed suicide um so that was really tough it seems it seems unimaginable that that chapter and season of your life could be filled with so much loss and so much complicated loss you know because in all these situations as you write about in the book there are reflections where you you say in the book if i you know you're left with this feeling if i'd done this i could maybe i should have done it like this or i wish i'd treat that situation differently in hindsight as we know is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Right. And I've sat here with a lot of people that have lost,

a lot of people by suicide and they all have the same reflections. They all have that last phone call with the person where they had to put up a boundary. Yeah. I've sat here, even in LA, in that chair with, I remember, Boz, her partner at the time, calling and saying, listen, if you don't come and do this, I'll jump off this bridge. And then he does.

Yeah. It's like that existential disappointment of just life being what it is. It's like grieving that. Grieving. like grieving that, grieving. It was like she went from this like happy person to like having this condition that just, right? And so I just, sometimes I just go, this is when I just have to like reconcile with God. It's like, wow, God, like you really be doing some stuff.

Like, you know what I mean? And it's like, and sometimes I get in grief around what life is. And then I have to make peace with it. It feels, if you think about your story, it feels confusing that God could seemingly hand someone so much, you know, wonderful career, wonderful family, all of those things things but at the same time and maybe maybe there's a relationship maybe there's a relationship between the two because had you not had the had you not come from where you came from maybe you wouldn't have had all the wonderful

things that you have but also had you not come from where you came from maybe you wouldn't have experienced all the loss that you've experienced so maybe there's a relationship between the two because I've not experienced that loss, but I don't come from where you come from. So I didn't lose friends growing up. Right. I didn't lose friends in my 20s either. Right. Having all the different experiences that I've had, as painful as some of them are,

it gives me the opportunity to join people in a certain manner. And in really powerful places. Like I have a beautiful friendship with Lauren London, and she is the widow of Nipsey Hussle. And because of the loss that I went through with Pac, I could reach out to her and I could go, Hey, anytime you need anything, anytime you need to talk i'm here and lauren's quite like me defenses you know what i mean but i just kept walking closer and closer and i just say all that

to say that we've been able to meet each other in a certain place because of the type of losses we've had that can really create beautiful connection. You feel me? I feel you. Yeah. So there are blessings in pain you just gotta know that to be true and wait for that door to open you know

and that's just one one tiny example of like the blessings that I've found and a lot of the loss that I've had in my life in general you know there's almost a an irony or a paradox in the fact that your pain caused a disconnection but then the pain caused connection deep because

heartbreak there's this beautiful seed in heartbreak which is like it breaks you open breaks you open and you got two places that you can go you can go into the deep wells of darkness or you can go into the deep wells of light

and I've been to both or you can go into the deep wells of light. And I've been to both. And I've learned, I ain't trying to be over here no more. You know what I mean? And so I always use heartbreak, discontent, pain to help me search for bright light and beautiful blessings within them. In the opener of the book, you describe in the prologue the life that the world would have seen

over the next sort of 10 years of your life before you turn 40. You describe your super successful Hollywood actress. You've got this husband who is, you know, Will Smith, and he's a super successful Hollywood actor. You've got these kids, you've got the family, you've got the house, you've got it all. Externally, you're killing the game.

So internally, you must be killing the game. Right. Internally, you know, I was spiritually bankrupt. Right. I find it so, I find it so interesting hearing you describe the relationship that both you and Will had as it relates to conflict resolution. I find it so interesting because I've come to learn over the last couple of years that the way we deal with conflict predicts the long-term health of our relationships. Oh, God, yeah. And I think there's this professor,

I think it's called Professor John Gottman, who studied couples and tried to figure out why they end up in divorce. And he says the number one reason is because they build contempt. That's all about conflict resolution, how you're dealing with your bullshit. Yes, absolutely. Now, you remind me of my partner

because she wants connection. She wants to talk. She wants to resolve things. She's, you know, of my partner because she wants connection. She wants to talk. She wants to resolve things. She's, you know, she wants to deal with the emotions. I would like to not. Right. I'll buy you something to make sure that you're safe. Right.

I'll pay for your stuff. Right. But I just want to work. Yeah. And that's the way you describe Will. Yeah. And so I resonated with Will in that. But you sharing how you felt throughout that story helped me to understand my partner.

And all the conversations she's had with me about what she actually wants from me. And me misunderstanding her because we have different love languages. Yeah. And your love language starts when you're a kid, right? Yeah, for sure. And Will's does too. Absolutely. What was that conflict of your love languages?

Will's, you know, was very much like yours. It's like, I want to work. I'm going to work hard so that you can have everything in the world that you'd ever want. You know, you're not going to need for anything. Right. And my love language was like, but I just want you to be here with me. I don't need all of that stuff. I want to look in your eyes and, you know, feel your love and feel your protection here with me. And, you know, it's like that connection. I wanted to feel like I wanted to make a masterpiece out of our connection, you know, and he wanted to make a masterpiece out of, you know, the, the,

the life itself. Right. And neither is wrong. Neither is wrong. And that's what I had to learn. That's where we've come to now in understanding. Neither one of those wants are wrong. So how do you balance them? Because it can't be one or the other. How do we balance it? Like yin and yang, everything about life is balance. So I just want you to know that because in in as couples we get into these power struggles no my way is right no my way is right well if you didn't have this you know you know it gets into all of that right and it's like stop

it's not about anybody being right or wrong how do you get the balance of it that's it right and so yeah it took Will and I three decades I remember that kind of time yeah three decades. I haven't got that kind of time. Yeah.

Three decades. Okay. Three decades. That's what we'll get to that. We'll get you. It doesn't have to be that. You know,

it's like, do it now. Because that's what I've said to my girlfriend is I've told her that I've got this opportunity now because things are going well in my career so I just want to focus for now and then we're gonna have all of our lives together

actually said that to her one day and she reminded me of it a week later when we were arguing yeah I was like we're gonna have all of our lives together so like we'll connect later yeah we'll connect later it's like what kind of foolishness is that you know what i mean and i'm gonna tell you like this i bet you when you're on your deathbed you're not gonna think about whatever it is you're trying to accomplish and achieve what do you think you're gonna think about most when you're on your deathbed how you were loved and how you loved no 100 okay and even as i said it i thought about tupac and how you never know how long you've got left with someone you don't know why would you ever want to wait and put that off it's an excuse though isn't it it is an

excuse to justify my own toxic work holism you know, I wouldn't call it toxic. I'm always careful with this word toxic that we're throwing around, right? Because we're all so wounded. Exactly. And it's not, listen. Intimacy makes us have to look at our shit. Right? It's easy to go, I pissed you you off i got you this diamond ring i got you this

you know beautiful bag i'm going to take you on this trip it's like right but like real emotional intimacy we gotta we gotta deal with our. A lot of stuff comes up there. But that's where connection and love and true happiness, true fulfillment is what's going on in our inner landscape. You talk of this loss of identity when you married will and this is a quote i wrote down it feels like i can't grasp my own journey at times i feel resentful and angry i don't know what to do about it you and will had these two sort of different visions for happiness and your lives together his being that he wanted to take over the world as a global you know movie star

all the things that he is and within there you start to lose yourself a little bit, it seems. This word resentful. Yeah. Very interesting word. Yeah. Can you give color to that word? Why you chose to use that word? Because it's true.

You know, it was like I felt as though at that time, all right, if, if I'm, I, I want to help you do all of those things. I'm here to help you with that. Right. Um, and I'm like, and in return, I should get a bit of what I want, which is connection. Right? And so you just, for me, just giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and forgiving, forgetting. Well, not even forgetting, not realizing that I was abandoning myself in the hopes that if I just keep pouring into this, if I just keep pouring into him, if I keep pouring into his dream, I'm going to eventually get what I want, right? And that's a false idea in so many ways, right?

And so many of us do that. If Will looked back and was trying to give me whatever the hell it was I was asking for, he wouldn't have been able to accomplish it anyway. Because if I'm not connected to myself, if I don't have a good relationship with me, there's nothing he can do. So I was going to be asked out anyway. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, that's part of the journey. There's no right or wrong. Everybody's always trying to find the good guy or bad guy in people's stories. There's no good guys or bad guys. We're all wounded trying to figure this shit out. You know, and so it took me a long time to realize it is not his responsibility to make you happy. He can't. It's impossible. But it took me forever.

Hardheaded, stubborn, you know, because because that romantic idea and that's why i talk about checking the boxes it's like i did everything i was supposed to do you get to have your dream how come i'm not having mine and that's because will was doing what he wanted to do he was making himself happy he was making himself happy and he says that to you doesn't he he says you when you separate he says he wants you to go and he's like how we you know I think it was very true but I think at that particular point of time I was just still really resentful I'm just like you know oh so I helped you get your happiness. Now you just going,

you know, throw me to the curb and, you know, I got to do it all on my own now, you know, but that's the truth. I had to do it on my own, you know, just like he did. You got to do it on your own. You got to do it on your own. You got to do it on your own. And a lot of that's what this is about in me detoxing from needing fulfillment from will my marriage my family a career like I had to get to the bare bones of Jada and walk what I call the exiled lands and those exiled lands are going into the crevices of you, those places within that were holding me back from myself. All the fears, all of the false information and false ideas of what life is and what a marriage is supposed to be and, you know, who I was supposed to be,

what a wife is, like all of it. Perfectionism. Perfectionism. Perfectionism. And then I just went off to be completely imperfect and took joy in that. Because being in Hollywood, I mean, this is a place that values the appearance of perfectionism. Like everything looks perfect on the surface. Yeah. And I think it's not a healthy idea.

It's just not healthy. And it's not true. And nobody can live up to that, you know, which is why I've been dismantling that need to be perfect for myself. And that's been a painful ride, but. Leading up to your 40th birthday, which is also where the book starts, I read the first pages of the prologue

and I couldn't quite believe what I was reading because the place you're at in your life, this chronic state of discontent that you describe. I remember when I got to the chapter 17 in the book, which is No Soccer Mom Here. That was the first time I had to stop reading because it was a lot, a lot for me to take. Hearing that that's what was going on in your head and your mind. That's the way you viewed life. You didn't see any path forward for you.

You're 39 years old um apparently you know on the surface it seems like you've got everything that anyone would dream of having but internally there's this chronic state of discontent yeah if i was i often say to people if i was a on the wall, but if I was a fly inside the walls. Yeah. What were you, what was going through your mind? 39 years old, about to turn 40. Oh, I was in a very, very dark place. Very dark place.

Just, I remember the line I read where you said, if i got to 4 p.m every day i was like i made it i made it and even that was like so hard i mean you know i was talking to my mother this morning because she just read the book and she said i can't believe you didn't talk about how you woke up every day crying. Really? Yeah. And I was like, you know, Ma, I just I think it was enough to tell people that I was looking for a cliff to drive off of. You know, and what she brought up was like. She knew I was unhappy, but she didn't know why. So it wasn't that

people around me didn't know that I was really unhappy. It's just that everybody believed what I believed, which is why it was so hard for me to talk about, which is like, you've got everything. What are you unhappy about? Right? And so that's how I was feeling. You've got everything. What are you unhappy about? And that was just, I had so much shame around that because I didn't understand.

And even then, there wasn't a lot of conversation around mental health. And so I was just like, fuck it. I can't keep doing this. I want out. And it was just a really, really dark time. When you say you were looking for a cliff to drive off of, you're not saying that theoretically or as a metaphor? No, I'm saying I was looking to the point where I was like, big sir, I knew exactly the route to drive. And it's this really narrow route.

And sometimes it gets really foggy there at night. And I'm not making it out of that drop. I remember driving that one time, going to Big Sur, because I was looking here on Mulholland. I was like, these drops aren't going to... I need a drop that I'm not making it back. I don't want to be disfigured I don't want I want out and I knew I had to make it look like an accident because I did not want my kids to think that I had committed suicide no I was I was yeah I was in a lot of pain I was in a lot of pain.

I was in a really, really dark place. And when you're in that place, you just can't see your way out. And you really think, I really thought something was really wrong with me because what I was feeling wasn't matching the exterior of my life. So I really did feel like I was just born broken. And I was just wired in a way that just... What was the truth? If that's how you felt,

what was, in hindsight now, what do you know to be the truth of that emotion and that state of your life, 39, 40 years old? What was actually going on? That I really feel like that sometimes when we get into these states of wanting to die, you know, for those of us who have had who have had suicidal thoughts and what have you, sometimes it is chemical. That's a different thing. I think mine was more psychological. Something is asking to die, but not you. And it's a different way of looking at things, right?

And so it is an extreme shift in which I had to get out of my cycle of self-hatred. I was in a cycle of self-hatred. I was in a cycle of self-hatred that I didn't even know because we're unconscious of it. So the mind is tricking us, you know what I mean? We got to be careful with this. This isn't as reliable as we think, you know? And so, but I was in a cycle of self-hatred and it wasn't until, thank God for my son that I was, you know, he introduced me, um, his friend's father did ayahuasca and they happened to be talking about it and they talked to me about it.

Jaden came in the kitchen. He's like, you got to sit down with Moises and Mateo. You got to hear about this experience, ma, that their dad had. Was Jaden saying that intentionally? Did he know that you needed that? No, he wasn't saying that. He was just curious. He was just, he knows I'm curious.

He knows I'm a seeker. Right. Right. That was divine. And so I went and talked to them and I was like hey is your dad in town and then their dad came and I talked to him and he I was like I need that and then the universe opened up a door for me to have my own ceremony for days of intense, tense ceremony. But that's when I got to see that cycle of self-hatred. I was like, this is you. These are your thoughts. This is how you feel about yourself. This is the problem. And so the medicine really showed me this pit of self-hatred I was in and it helped me get out of it.

Chapter 20 of the book, you titled Surrender. Yeah. Surrender is an interesting word why is surrender so important in your journey you have to surrender everything you think you are and everything you think you know i've spoken to a lot of people that have done alcoholics anonymous and they talk about the importance of surrender yeah it's like surrendering you know for me also surrendering to a power a higher power and that's a constant that's every day i have to remind myself and deepen my surrender to a power far greater than myself chapter 21 the holy joke the holy slap and the holy lessons

it's interesting because there's similarities between chapter 19 and chapter 21 in that you took a lot of the blame for situations chapter 19 the entanglement conversation yeah because when you watch that clip online at the red table will looks tired and he looks sad and he says that thing he says i'm gonna get you back yeah it did it made it look like you had cheated on him or something i had to like check the facts because if you see that clip in isolation it looks like you cheated on will or something which is not what happened yeah but you put that out anyway you put you could have not put that out do you regret putting that out no you don You don't? I don't. If I didn't put that out, I wouldn't have seen that next place of healing that I needed.

Because I can take so much, like, discomfort. It wasn't until I saw how the people around me were affected. I mean, my mother, my kids, my friends, people, like, they were like, how could you do this? And I was like, well, I just wanted to end everything you know Will wasn't ready for the world to know

that we weren't together and that we were living separate lives and I just took it because I just wanted to stop I just wanted to end people were like no my mother was like, what are you?

She was like, you need to get your ass in therapy. She was like, you are codependent as hell. You know? And everybody was just so, and then how people that love me so much were affected by that time. I don't think it would have penetrated and for me to really look at that part of myself if it hadn't been for how the people around me reacted. Because I don't really care about public in that way like most people do. I don't,

whatever, because I understand the chaos and the just absurdity of all of that. But people who love me, I needed that mirror to see that place of healing that needed to happen in me, in the dynamic within myself. What was that dynamic within yourself?

Just like martyrdom. Oh, okay, throwing yourself under the... Yeah, that martyrdom that I will... Martyrdom, the holy slap. Yeah. You write about in the book how you didn't realize that Will had actually slapped Chris until much later. You suspected maybe it was a skit or a joke. I thought it was a skit, and then I realized it wasn't,

but I didn't think that he actually made contact with chris looked like he ducked it social media grabbed onto this eye roll and they um social media believed that that eye roll was some kind of like go get him will yeah and even if it was it was, I can't force Will to do anything. And you and Will weren't together. We weren't together as, you know, we were family. I was there with him as family, but we weren't together at that time. Were you surprised by the reaction to that moment, both for you but also for Will? Yes and no.

I was surprised at how much i knew i was gonna get blamed but like i didn't think that it was gonna be i mean it was insane you know it was like wow um but i knew i knew we i knew it was gonna be a storm in the book you say protection is your love language he protected you didn't he um did you see that as a act of love you know it's a really complicated moment it's a really complex moment i'll say yes and no in a certain manner you know um but i definitely think in his way in a certain manner, you know? But I definitely think in his way. But it was so much more, it wasn't about me. That's why it's complex, right? It's like, it was about a lot more than just

that moment, a lot more than just me. That what i know you know what i mean because you know well and you know where he's come from yeah and i there was a lot that was stirring up for him at that time because of emancipation and he and chris have their own history going back to the 80s yeah going back to the 80s and it's a deep one. Jada, thank you. Thank you for writing this book, because it's not until we understand people's context that we understand them. And when we understand them, we realize that they are just so much like us. Yeah. In the wounded, the imperfect, the survival, the defense, and all of those those things and that's exactly what i got from reading worthy um but also as i said to you i think before we started recording there were so

many moments in there that acted as the advice that no one around me could have given me because they've not walked in those stairs you act as an elder to me in the book because you've helped me to figure out and shine a light on a certain area of my behavior, which comes from maybe a wound that I have that is going to hold me back and lead me to a place I don't want to go to. I promise you, yes. Yeah, exactly. And you're right. You used the word breadcrumbs, but that's exactly what the book is. It's your story, but throughout your story, you leave these little nuggets of wisdom and lessons that will guide those that read the book to a better place in their own lives.

And they can subjectively define what that better place is, but the wisdom is enduring because the wisdom is human and it's true. So there's something in there for everybody. It's one of the best books I've ever read because of the writing style, the vividness. I felt like I was in your grandmother's garden. I felt like I was there at all of the key moments. When you have what I described, what I thought was a panic attack on the highway and those moments, the moments of sadness,

the vividness of the writing is so profound, but the vulnerability of the book is the most impressive thing. It's easy not to be vulnerable. It's easy to paint a narrative that is self-serving, but that's not what you do here. You seem to be in the pursuit of the truth. And that's exactly what I take away from this book.

So thank you so much, Jada. Thank you. Thank you for creating a safe space at your grey table. And for holding my tears today. I appreciate that. Thank you.