Speaker 1: Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: Facebook watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts. You're presenting yourself as a venus. I
Speaker 1: just felt like dudes to come into the table, said no,
Speaker 1: why not have a little feminine You know, Sam, what
Speaker 1: do men really think about love? To find out? I
Speaker 1: have two friends coming to the table. Both are very
Speaker 1: talented and very different. Actor director Justin Baldoni is married
Speaker 1: with two kids, but he says it didn't come easily.
Speaker 1: And Grammy winning rapper Wile is ready for his perfect match,
Speaker 1: but as skeptical it will ever happen. Hey you two,
Speaker 1: I should have won my son glass. We're glowing. We're
Speaker 1: glowing up. It's just a energy because y'all are like
Speaker 1: the same person, but like it's not and it's like
Speaker 1: very powerful and it's like this table is like glowing,
Speaker 1: not like X men, black X woman. Thank you, we
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Today we're gonna be trying to get to
Speaker 1: an understanding of what love is about. We think we
Speaker 1: know how to love. That's the thing we think that
Speaker 1: we come into relationships. You meet somebody that you really like,
Speaker 1: and you think that person knows how to love you,
Speaker 1: and you think you know how to love them, and
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is you have no idea.
Speaker 1: And the excruciating part about it is really learning what
Speaker 1: love is and what loves about. I recently had like
Speaker 1: like a relation, Like I really think like, uh, maybe
Speaker 1: it's time to have somebody that's about on with somebody, really,
Speaker 1: I think because I'm doing all of these things that
Speaker 1: would be funny to do with somebody that was with me.
Speaker 1: I just came from Paris and like I'm like walking
Speaker 1: around the streets Paris. Why am I in Paris? Like no,
Speaker 1: like by myself? Yeah, Like what's up with me? What
Speaker 1: is it me? No? No, it is me, it's me,
Speaker 1: But it's me. It's me. There's been time that I
Speaker 1: was really, really in love and it wasn't me, and
Speaker 1: maybe that shaped it to be what I've become. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna really try to deal with the things that have
Speaker 1: messed up with and just trying to figure it out
Speaker 1: because nobody wants see nobody just what it's always by myself,
Speaker 1: like where your vampirely. I can't do that at a moment,
Speaker 1: but no, I feel you. Here's what I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: just personally. In my journey, what I had to realize
Speaker 1: was that I had to find all the peace, love
Speaker 1: and joy within my heart in order to bring it
Speaker 1: to the table to share. Will had to go away
Speaker 1: and find the peace, love and joy in his heart
Speaker 1: to share, so that that's what we share instead of
Speaker 1: our traumas from our childhood. You know, all of our
Speaker 1: insecurities and fears that we usually come to the table
Speaker 1: with in our relationships that have our partners fixed. I
Speaker 1: need you to be this thing for me so I
Speaker 1: don't feel a certain way. And what I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: is I'm gonna put so much pressure on you and
Speaker 1: find really sneaky ways to manipulate you so that you
Speaker 1: will always be the thing that I need you to
Speaker 1: be so that I'm happy. I was raising my handbook,
Speaker 1: can you run from President of Love? But um, the
Speaker 1: partnership that you're talking about, that's the goal. That's the
Speaker 1: lightly end of the tunnel I'm saying. But in my industry,
Speaker 1: a lot of times, the wealthiest, most known person in
Speaker 1: the room is usually the Loneliest. I got famous young
Speaker 1: in d C. And I's like seen how women were
Speaker 1: like acting around me, and I think it shaped how
Speaker 1: I viewed women moving forward. So I'm like, okay, like
Speaker 1: if they changed how they were acting towards you, You're
Speaker 1: talking to a rapper, and it's like, all I see
Speaker 1: is promiscuous behavior. All I see is, oh, my man
Speaker 1: played for this team and his wife cheating on him
Speaker 1: for somebody that I'm seeing this first hand. And then
Speaker 1: I fell head over hills for somebody in this industry.
Speaker 1: I've seen how vicious it can be and how gutted
Speaker 1: I was. I was never really I was never really
Speaker 1: the same our industry, entertainment, everybody moves on so fast
Speaker 1: we can't even argue. Think about that. You can't even
Speaker 1: we argue. Two days later, you on you and Grace
Speaker 1: Stone with a fourth string running back. So when you
Speaker 1: talk about girls, young ladies, any conflict, they're they're gone.
Speaker 1: So whoever's wrong, whoever's right, doesn't matter. You can't even reconcile.
Speaker 1: You're just onto the next one. Man. This is interesting
Speaker 1: because I've heard so many women say that about men,
Speaker 1: that it's not a lot of men out here that
Speaker 1: want to have relationships about relationship because relationships take work.
Speaker 1: The best description of marriage I ever got was from
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine who said, marriages to people
Speaker 1: that take a lifetime full of Yeah, they take two
Speaker 1: people and you bring your your like bags and this
Speaker 1: person brings their bags of it, and then you all
Speaker 1: put it in this front yard and that is your
Speaker 1: foundation for your house. That is, it becomes your fertilizer
Speaker 1: for which your marriage can grow. But we're not trained
Speaker 1: to think about it, right, what is love in like
Speaker 1: two sentences? Sometimes it's really hard for me to talk
Speaker 1: about it because being at a stage of where you
Speaker 1: are looking for a relationship, look for someone to create
Speaker 1: a foundation with versus someone like myself who has done
Speaker 1: it for the last five years. Because there's evolutions to it. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: what you think is right and then when it grows
Speaker 1: to be and what you learn. So I'm twenty five
Speaker 1: years in and my concept of love is very different
Speaker 1: than with someone looking, looking for and ready for our
Speaker 1: completely different speciums. Though I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm not
Speaker 1: looking because if I'm looking, I could go I can
Speaker 1: go to that Starbucks around the corner in Calibasa what's
Speaker 1: you like? You know what I'm saying, like like that's
Speaker 1: looking ready for is like ready to love? You already
Speaker 1: ready to love. But you know what's interesting is I
Speaker 1: know a lot of men that are our age that's
Speaker 1: say they're ready, but don't necessarily back it up. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it's just in the entertainment business or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I don't think. I think everything that you talked
Speaker 1: about your experience as a celebrity is very similar to
Speaker 1: the experience that a lot of young women and men
Speaker 1: are having to disagree. Bro you know why if I
Speaker 1: take out a woman or if I'm kicking it with
Speaker 1: a girl without anything, there's a part of it that
Speaker 1: turns into an interview like they they're so unamoroued with
Speaker 1: the business that I'm in that they're not really seeing
Speaker 1: me as a person. Even you your celebrity. If you're
Speaker 1: out and you chilling, and you could tell when somebody's
Speaker 1: looking at you like a woman and when they're looking
Speaker 1: at you like a statue. Like But I think what
Speaker 1: Justice trying to say is that at the core of it,
Speaker 1: at the core of it, it's a human issue that's
Speaker 1: happening right now. And I think it's a symptom of
Speaker 1: you talked about instant gratification. Thank god tender wasn't around
Speaker 1: when I met my wife. So how did you meet
Speaker 1: your wife after a year of like just soul searching
Speaker 1: and patience and and trying to figure out my life. Coincidentally,
Speaker 1: she had under the exact same thing, and we met
Speaker 1: in the business that way. It was not easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing the dating process. But the dating process was at
Speaker 1: times like painfully horrific. My wife and I we went deep.
Speaker 1: It was uncomfortable. We realized we wanted different things. At times,
Speaker 1: we weren't sure if we were spiritually aligned. We were
Speaker 1: from completely different countries. But I jumped in and I said,
Speaker 1: this is me, these are my flaws, these are my insecurities,
Speaker 1: like this is this is all of the things that
Speaker 1: are wrong with me. And she wanted to walk away
Speaker 1: and I kept chasing her right, so there was there
Speaker 1: was a balance. She needed space. I didn't understand what
Speaker 1: space meant, which, because we worked through it ended up
Speaker 1: being the foundation of a beautiful, healthy marriage. But I
Speaker 1: have so many friends that are ready that jumped into
Speaker 1: these things and at the first sign of conflict we
Speaker 1: had but we had had a buffet. Now I don't
Speaker 1: like the broccoli. Ma, I'm gonna gospergus exactly like a
Speaker 1: spags man. I must just get to potatose. It's quick. Now,
Speaker 1: this is what what you do? Where's his camera? His camera?
Speaker 1: That's what I want you to do, because I know
Speaker 1: you're looking for love. I want to tell the camera
Speaker 1: you want and a woman. I want to hear this.
Speaker 1: That's what I actually want to hear it too. I
Speaker 1: want to hear if you even know. I want a
Speaker 1: woman to show me what I want in a woman.
Speaker 1: That's what I want. You don't know what I don't know.
Speaker 1: I want to leave it like a woman. I believe.
Speaker 1: I believe that intuition a stronger, immense period. Do you
Speaker 1: want to be to tell you what you want? Okay?
Speaker 1: God be my friend for real? Like loyalty is that,
Speaker 1: like it's very important and understanding because I am not
Speaker 1: a regular man. For better or worse, my my my badest, bad,
Speaker 1: my goodest amazing. So you need someone to understand that
Speaker 1: I'm crazy pretty much right to be patient it with.
Speaker 1: You're crazy, So you want a woman. But that's loyalty.
Speaker 1: But it's also somebody who's bringing something to the table,
Speaker 1: whether emotionally or other. Right, not just somebody that's gonna
Speaker 1: be take, take take. I've been stabbing the back by
Speaker 1: people that I grew up with. So let alone somebody
Speaker 1: that I'm just meeting. Let alone as somebody that knows
Speaker 1: that there are first dates. Feels like an interview. It's
Speaker 1: an emotional desert out here. People think that love equals
Speaker 1: satiating all of their pain, the tragedies that they've been
Speaker 1: through in their life. It's like a little puzzle how
Speaker 1: you're supposed to satiate even from daddy issues, from being
Speaker 1: left to abandoned. But here's the thing. It's it's the
Speaker 1: facade of love too, and the sacrifice when you when
Speaker 1: you leave someone and continue to love them, the sacrifices
Speaker 1: each of you have to make. Nobody mentions that part.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you sacrifice, the deterioration and the dissolving
Speaker 1: of fantasies. That's the real and idealist elaborate. So you
Speaker 1: right now, having your mind you're perfect woman, okay, and
Speaker 1: when you find that woman, she's going to be a
Speaker 1: goddess to you. But here's the thing. I always feel
Speaker 1: like we fall in love with the goddess or the
Speaker 1: god within that person. And then when we actually meet
Speaker 1: the human being, then we got to learn how to
Speaker 1: love that one. And this is when the reason why
Speaker 1: it's so important to me to be able to stick
Speaker 1: it out is because to really get to the true
Speaker 1: meaning of love, in my opinion, it is unconditional. It
Speaker 1: has to be because we are all too flall like,
Speaker 1: it can't be matter how much work we do, no
Speaker 1: matter how much, it never ends, it never it ends
Speaker 1: the day that we leave this planet exactly. Why about
Speaker 1: somebody has learns your buttons right, and like now they
Speaker 1: get up their rocks off by pushing every single one
Speaker 1: of them. You gotta go, you gotta go because this
Speaker 1: person has learned me for the wrong. You're gonna be
Speaker 1: with somebody. They're gonna learn, they're gonna learn with the push. Regardless,
Speaker 1: some people use it for the worst. Some people like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know his buttons. But let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff you gotta work here. That's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's not that's not there's nothing that's that's not
Speaker 1: blissful about that. But who said that Relationships and love
Speaker 1: and marriage why you always be See this is the
Speaker 1: misconception right here. Answer, I would let you. It's a
Speaker 1: spiritual endeavor. That's the whole thing. I have to look
Speaker 1: at my trauma and you're pushing my buttons. That's making
Speaker 1: me look at my trauma and what I need to
Speaker 1: work on and clean up your old stuff, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Because why? But what can I tell you?
Speaker 1: Like everybody, that's that's an opportunity for you to work
Speaker 1: on you. It's not. I'm always working on me. I
Speaker 1: always come for her to work on her too. I
Speaker 1: feel like this is an intervention now listen. Intervention no, no,
Speaker 1: Because you know, relationships mirror they show us ourselves. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what I've learned. And typically the things that you
Speaker 1: don't like about somebody or things that you don't like
Speaker 1: about yourself, that's it. Though you better preach game. I'm
Speaker 1: although numb to all that because of what I've seen
Speaker 1: in my career, in my life. Like when I feel
Speaker 1: like you're starting to press these buttons to get something
Speaker 1: from you getting my shut now, I totally can I
Speaker 1: get that because I think that we have two options.
Speaker 1: When you're in a relationship, you can look at things
Speaker 1: through the lens of fear, or you can look at
Speaker 1: things through the lens of love. And I think that
Speaker 1: every decision we make in a relationship can be boiled
Speaker 1: down to going down one of those two paths, either
Speaker 1: a fearful reaction that comes from a place of lack
Speaker 1: that comes from could be anything, or love which is
Speaker 1: like I'm going to hold that, or I'm going to
Speaker 1: respond to that in a way that isn't my own
Speaker 1: stoff from my own fear and what I realized in
Speaker 1: my own marriage, because I can only speak for myself
Speaker 1: and what I've witnessed. My parents been married for thirt
Speaker 1: or five years and by the way, like their marriage
Speaker 1: wasn't perfect either. And I got to see that when
Speaker 1: when in your life that you start to realize that
Speaker 1: your parents marriage had an effect on like you as
Speaker 1: a man, because maybe I never saw my parents. I
Speaker 1: never I'm not during both my parents Nigerian, and I
Speaker 1: grew up very, very Nigernant. My mother was always gone,
Speaker 1: my father was always driving cabs. So a lot of
Speaker 1: it come from TV hyper difference, Like you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like you you can you can watch Martin
Speaker 1: and and and trying to understand what the relationship is
Speaker 1: like when you get older and then you go home
Speaker 1: and you don't see your parents even hug nothing. I'm honey,
Speaker 1: I'm home, but this this, honey, I'm home, shout the mother.
Speaker 1: I don't know this, and to see come home. It's
Speaker 1: like a business almost you know what I'm saying. Any
Speaker 1: not geriant person that's watching this right now, understand, like
Speaker 1: we love our parents. We love our parents to death.
Speaker 1: Do anything for my mother's so father's. We don't know
Speaker 1: the dynamic between both of them. We don't know this
Speaker 1: dynamic th generations at one table. No way, it's don't happen.
Speaker 1: And like we're not friends per se with our parents.
Speaker 1: I could count on one hand how many times I've
Speaker 1: even heard them say I love you tow each other,
Speaker 1: let alone me. But you know, but that's a huge
Speaker 1: thing because I didn't realize that. But I certain I was, like, yo,
Speaker 1: now I understand why I have this like weirdness with
Speaker 1: like you know, trust and emotion and listening and all
Speaker 1: of these things. But that's the whole thing. Let's say
Speaker 1: you met a woman, right and you told her that story.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not good with love because I know
Speaker 1: I was never taught by my dad how to express
Speaker 1: it because I never even saw them kiss like right then,
Speaker 1: and there would make a difference right there for women
Speaker 1: that are watching you just not because like like that.
Speaker 1: Let me just let me just man the man. Then
Speaker 1: just tell you something. It is so beautiful to see
Speaker 1: another guy, especially in your situation as a rapper, be
Speaker 1: willing to be that vulnerable you just said. Look at
Speaker 1: how imperfect and flawed I am. Here's all my yeah,
Speaker 1: and that is the best place to start to look
Speaker 1: for love. But sometimes I like to keep that, like
Speaker 1: I know that I'm so damaged in some ways. I
Speaker 1: don't want to bring that to nobody. Crib, I want
Speaker 1: to bring it to nobody, But you're doing it anyway.
Speaker 1: If I kind of keep it, we all do it.
Speaker 1: There's no way around it. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: single parent home. I didn't see all the time healthy relationships.
Speaker 1: I had to figure it out too. I came to
Speaker 1: the table with a lot of pain. I came to
Speaker 1: the table with a lot of brokenness, and most of all,
Speaker 1: I came to the table with some hardcore daddy issues
Speaker 1: and it made me really angry towards men. I had
Speaker 1: very high expectations so it really it was hard. I
Speaker 1: could have ended up with all kinds of dudes the
Speaker 1: way I ended up with Will. I had to change
Speaker 1: my whole perspective because I want you to know something.
Speaker 1: He was not the due, right, but I had to
Speaker 1: change that. I can't ask somebody to be for me
Speaker 1: what I'm not willing to be for them. And what
Speaker 1: I realized that my partnership with Will was that I
Speaker 1: was asking him to be a lot of things for
Speaker 1: me that I wasn't willing to do for me. Let's heavy,
Speaker 1: and sometimes one person's trauma like triggers the other person's trauma,
Speaker 1: and you get into this circle where no one can
Speaker 1: listen to each other. And that's something that nobody ever
Speaker 1: talks about sides, and that was something that my wife
Speaker 1: and I dealt with right at the beginning of our
Speaker 1: relationship and marriage. My insecurities triggered hers yes, and then
Speaker 1: at that point it's so easy to leave because you're like, well,
Speaker 1: we're clearly not compatible, right, what was it about her
Speaker 1: that made you want to pursue her? I think it
Speaker 1: was us together. There was a deep knowing. Right even
Speaker 1: when my ego acted up and said I should leave,
Speaker 1: I couldn't. And I'll be very honest, before we got married,
Speaker 1: there was a part of me that, right before we
Speaker 1: got married, questioned it and I went, am I really
Speaker 1: ready to settle down? I started calling my friends. I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure, and my friends were all like, you're being
Speaker 1: an idiot right now, and they told me the truth
Speaker 1: and they said, this is your ego talking in The
Speaker 1: second I got past that, I found the knowing again
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, this is my person. So
Speaker 1: no matter how painful it was, there was something that
Speaker 1: told me to just stay and to just be steady,
Speaker 1: even when I was going through and sobbing in my
Speaker 1: room all night long. And I'm saying that because I
Speaker 1: want everybody to know that, Like you look at my instagram,
Speaker 1: you see all of us happy, but I'm very very
Speaker 1: clear that there was so much more to marriage than
Speaker 1: just the smiling photos at the beach and look, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you that. Then several occasions okay where you just
Speaker 1: had enough and you want to leave and I just couldn't. Oh,
Speaker 1: we'll just couldn't because we knew this is what is
Speaker 1: meant to be, this partnership, no matter what the form
Speaker 1: it is. You know, because we've had to redefine it,
Speaker 1: reform it, you know, change it. We don't call ourselves
Speaker 1: married anymore. We're in a life partnership. Just did you
Speaker 1: see that in your parents? I definitely did what you are.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would just be in the room while
Speaker 1: they were debating about whatever it is about the world
Speaker 1: or their emotions or the environment or politics or whatever
Speaker 1: it was, and I would just always be there watching
Speaker 1: them and how they talked to each other, watching how
Speaker 1: they agreed to disagree. And at the end, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're not right or wrong and I
Speaker 1: allow you your opinion exactly. And I feel like watching
Speaker 1: that over and over again just kind of solidified this
Speaker 1: idea of like, it's really not about right and wrong,
Speaker 1: it's about understanding. And once you understand somebody and how
Speaker 1: they're feeling and what their view is, you can move
Speaker 1: on with more ease because you have that understanding. But
Speaker 1: those are the steps towards love. Those are the steps
Speaker 1: towards really building love. And it's so freaking difficult and
Speaker 1: so freaking excruciating, and sometimes you think it's not love,
Speaker 1: but it is. If you watch this back, it all
Speaker 1: sounds so painful. Every time. I think, let's let's listen.
Speaker 1: I don't want to see this movie. I get it,
Speaker 1: but I love it. I just think that I love
Speaker 1: is supposed to be like this big like Okay, I understand,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I mean, you're You're my balance,
Speaker 1: You're my you're my anchor, You're my all the things
Speaker 1: that you say at the at the altar. Why can't
Speaker 1: that be the one entity that is bringing you joy.
Speaker 1: You don't have to work to get it. I'm scared
Speaker 1: now you should then you should be scaring. Big question
Speaker 1: right now? Is it worth it? It's worth it, It's
Speaker 1: worth it, It's absolutely worth it. Why Why? Because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, to know that you have
Speaker 1: another person that can love you for all that you are.
Speaker 1: Will has loved me through the worst of myself, and
Speaker 1: I have done the same. And when somebody can love
Speaker 1: you in that way, it makes your faith in the
Speaker 1: world come together, in the way of which is like
Speaker 1: I am this is in all is well. I'm forty
Speaker 1: seven years old, and I want you to know that
Speaker 1: this is probably the first year of my life that
Speaker 1: I can say I am happy. Hm m hmm, because
Speaker 1: that's how long the journey has been so that journey
Speaker 1: isn't Is it too bumpy for some people? I get
Speaker 1: let me tell you that's real talk. But here's the
Speaker 1: one thing I want you to see. Two. You are
Speaker 1: learning how to love. When you think about all that
Speaker 1: conflict that you have within your spirit, it's almost like
Speaker 1: being in kindergarten of love and you want to get
Speaker 1: to like a pH d. It's like climbing a mountain.
Speaker 1: It's like do the work and then you see the beauty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: please hear that. Yeah, thank you for beauty. I want
Speaker 1: to thank you guys for this conversation. This is one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting red tables I've ever been to.
Speaker 1: It's like almost going to see a shrink on camera
Speaker 1: five wallet the ultimate, like god, oh man. Somebody that
Speaker 1: that's working to join the Red Table Talk family and
Speaker 1: become a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook Watch,
Speaker 1: Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.