In her BBC Radio 4 podcast Young Again, journalist and broadcaster Kirsty Young takes her guests back to meet their younger selves and asks the question: if you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently?
Jada Pinkett Smith is an actress and talk show host. Since her big break on sitcom A Different World in 1991, she’s had starring roles in the Matrix franchise, Madagascar, and Bad Moms. In 2018 she premiered her award-winning talk show Red Table Talk, which she hosts with her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris and her daughter Willow Smith.
Here are seven things we’ve learned…
1. Jada had a hard start in life
Both of Jada’s parents struggled with addiction while she was growing up.
I knew I didn't have a problem drawing a line [in Hollywood] because I had to do it in the streets
“You know, when you're born to parents whose priority is getting high versus you,” Jada remembers. “I grew up thinking something must be inherently wrong with me, that my parents can't give me the time and attention that I see other parents giving their children.”
“So as a child, that was foundational. It wasn't until I became a teenager that I realised, ‘Oh, that's not just me...’ But by that time, it was already ingrained that something's wrong with Jada. Jada's not lovable."
As a teenager though, Jada found people who looked out for her. “A lot of the men that I was dealing with, they were more interested in my girlfriends than they were in me, on a romantic level... So I had a lot of dudes that really took me under their wing as a little sister.”
2. But her tough upbringing helped Jada navigate Hollywood
“I had been with real wolves. Killers,” Jada says, “I survived that. So the attitude… how I came into Hollywood... I was very prickly. I was very ‘I’m not here to chat, I’m here to do a job’. I came with a certain edge, I really wasn’t for a lot of nonsense and I could tell what was what. I call it the Hollywood flex.”
"I had a producer who wanted me to do a cover of Playboy and was like, ‘If you don't do this cover of Playboy, you'll never work in Hollywood again.’ I said, ‘Well, so be it. But I'm not doing a cover of Playboy to sell your movie, so I could care less whether I work in Hollywood ever again.’”
“I knew I didn't have a problem drawing a line because I had to do it in the streets.”
3. Young Jada found her early success difficult
When Jada moved to Los Angeles her career started to take off, but a traumatic breakdown in her early twenties taught her that success wasn’t everything.
I don’t believe that we get to see ourselves without the reflection of relationships
“You know, I couldn't drive, I was just shaking,” Jada recalls. “And it came out of nowhere. It was as if some secret sea monster had been hiding within my soul somewhere. I had no idea what was happening with me. And you have to remember during this time nobody was talking about mental health, and not in the black community.”
“I'll never forget finally getting home. I called my mother right away. It was almost as if I had no control over myself and I knew if somebody didn't get to me quick, I was going to hurt myself. That was the first time when I was like I'm gonna – I'm gonna kill myself.”
“If you could go back to that moment and tell yourself something important, that would make it better, what would it be?” Kirsty asks.
“I would say,” Jada pauses. “I know you're having a hard time and I know this is unlike anything you've ever felt. But this is just your soul and your spirit telling you that there's a lot to look at and I just need you to breathe.”
4. Getting married taught her more about herself
When Jada first met Will Smith in 1994, she wasn’t convinced by the idea of getting married.
“I didn't look at marriage as ‘the thing’,” Jada says. “I was more of a free spirit. I didn’t see the joy in it, right? So it wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry Will. I don’t wanna marry anybody.”
"Were you right about yourself, that you were not ideally suited to the conventionality of that?” Kirsty asks.
“I would say, and this is a really deep subject of what I've learned about marriage,” Jada responds thoughtfully. “I think at that time I innately knew the kind of work it takes, that I didn’t want to do.”
“I don’t know if I would have gotten to the depths of myself, and the depths of understanding love in the way that I have, without this path of relating and marriage to Will. And as difficult as it’s been, I don’t believe that we get to see ourselves without the reflection of relationships.”
5. Jada remembers realising she had a problem with alcohol
“I was sitting and having lunch with a friend,” Jada tells Kirsty. “We had a glass of wine, and she left and I finished my glass of wine. I finished her glass of wine. I finished the bottle. I had a second bottle. And then I was getting up for my third bottle of wine – and I'm by myself, middle of the day, watching TV.”
“And when I brought that third bottle to the table and I saw the two empty bottles I said, ‘Something is really wrong here. You sat here by yourself and you drank all of this alcohol and you're going for your third.’ So it’s the visual of seeing those three bottles.”
“That's when I went cold turkey," Jada says. “And I was like, I never want [my stepson] to smell alcohol on my breath like I had to with my grandmother when she was drunk.”
6. What was Jada thinking after that infamous Oscars slap?
At the 2022 Oscars ceremony, Will Smith walked onto the stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock after Rock had made a joke about Jada’s shaved head. The moment quickly received worldwide scrutiny and went viral on social media.
Believe it when they say that loving yourself is the answer
“I think my first attention was on Will, making sure he was okay,” Jada remembers. “Because that had never occurred before. So my first concern was what was happening with him.”
“And then after that, really being focussed on paying attention to all of the old messaging and mechanisms that were coming up and replacing them with the new messages. Okay, this is where I'm supposed to be practising the new knowledge. And seeing how misunderstanding and anger takes us out of our loving and compassionate places.”
7. Jada believes in the importance of self-love
“Here's what I will say the advice is, when it comes to my life,” Jada pauses for thought. “Believe it when they say that loving yourself is the answer. As cliché as it is.”
“And that can sound kind of Californian and slightly nauseating,” Kirsty says.
“Exactly! Because I know when I used to hear it, like ‘Get the hell out – what does that even mean?’ And it means exactly that… ‘You are enough’.”
“And that’s the truth. Who knew, right?” Jada laughs. “That’s the truth!”
