Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk 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. Hey, red Table Talk Fam, we are
Speaker 1: back at the table and we got some new bobbing episodes.
Speaker 1: Our journey together is just getting started. I'm so thankful
Speaker 1: to have you here. We feel the love from you,
Speaker 1: and we have a lot more red Hot talks coming
Speaker 1: at you. And we're starting with the one and only
Speaker 1: Will Smith. I'm about to go to the Red table.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I feel like a fighter
Speaker 1: going to a fight. So I've read somebody screamed you
Speaker 1: the best chance, somebody screams thank you, thank you. I
Speaker 1: just hope that daddy's are making jokes the whole time.
Speaker 1: I said that too. Well, it should be interesting. And
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the first time we're actually talking
Speaker 1: about our unique union. I've been watching all your talks.
Speaker 1: People climb any breaking down. You're not breaking me to day, Jada.
Speaker 1: I've broken you enough well. And I said our vows
Speaker 1: almost twenty one years ago, and it's been an incredible
Speaker 1: journey ever since. But we struggled through a lot of
Speaker 1: pain to get where we are today. Here's the real
Speaker 1: story of becoming Mr and Mrs Smith. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: look who we have table, Yes, we got Willard Gerald Smith. Yes,
Speaker 1: excited to be here on the red table with you ladies.
Speaker 1: You know I've been away for a while. I've been
Speaker 1: at work. I was very surprised that the house wasn't
Speaker 1: a house no more. It's read just one part of it. Though.
Speaker 1: You look spectacular today. Thank you, Willard, Thank you so
Speaker 1: very happy to be here, very happy to have you here.
Speaker 1: Will What are we going to talk about today of
Speaker 1: and relating? We're gonna say a whole lot of stuff
Speaker 1: about our relationship. For years and years, there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of speculation about us, and our family has been
Speaker 1: pretty secretive and state. They think, oh, something weird must
Speaker 1: be going in when it's really just we don't be
Speaker 1: putting everything out there like that. We have created a
Speaker 1: marital and family paradigm that has been speculated about for
Speaker 1: a lot of years. So I'm excited to start what
Speaker 1: they want. Let's start with the first time I met
Speaker 1: you was at the Fresh Prince when I came to
Speaker 1: audition I think I was nineteen and they told me
Speaker 1: I was too short, but you were there, yes, So
Speaker 1: I remember you were in Different World and Alfonso knew everybody,
Speaker 1: and I remember the first time I saw you. Actually
Speaker 1: think I dated Alfonso. You went on a date with
Speaker 1: fons I together and he took you on a motorcycle
Speaker 1: or something. My memory is I dated at Yeah, I'm sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we went on one day, so Alfonso knew you.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, dude, I saw this girl on
Speaker 1: Different World last night. I was like, her name is Jada, Dude?
Speaker 1: He said, oh yeah, yeah, my boy knows that he
Speaker 1: can't introduce you. I have a thing I recognize when
Speaker 1: I see a person if our relationship can be exponential.
Speaker 1: The first night with Jazzy Jeff with fifteen minutes, I
Speaker 1: was like, yo, me and that dude can create right.
Speaker 1: I could just I just feel it and I know
Speaker 1: it when somebody is right for me. First night on
Speaker 1: that our findso like we were playing. I was like,
Speaker 1: me and that dude our magic. When I saw you
Speaker 1: on Different World, it was that thing and I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is that the bell rings and I
Speaker 1: knew that there was something in our energy that would
Speaker 1: be magic, and so I was like, I'll hook it up. Uh.
Speaker 1: Fresh Prince taped on Friday nights and Different World taped
Speaker 1: on Thursday Thursday, so it was the night before. So
Speaker 1: Alf was like, yo, I can, I can set the
Speaker 1: meeting up. So we went, you know, and it was
Speaker 1: first season. I was Fresh Prince. So I walked up
Speaker 1: in the audience a Different World. I was the fresh Prince,
Speaker 1: you know. So it was you know, I walked in,
Speaker 1: I sat down in the audience and they the taping started,
Speaker 1: and then Alf was like, yo, that's my boy, that
Speaker 1: knows When he sat down and I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: who's that girl he's with? It was like the dude
Speaker 1: that was gonna introduce me was with another girl, and
Speaker 1: I was like, who is that girl? And it was Shari.
Speaker 1: He went to Different World to meet Jada and that
Speaker 1: Sharie and ended up marrying Shari and having with you
Speaker 1: didn't know. I don't think I've heard that before. I
Speaker 1: didn't meet Jada. That day. We had a party at
Speaker 1: our house. I mean, Sharia had a party at the
Speaker 1: house or something. I can't remember. Joka some some two
Speaker 1: bit Joka whatever. We had all of these near misses,
Speaker 1: and every time we saw each other it was always
Speaker 1: a beautiful energy. The real time was probably I think
Speaker 1: Dwayne and T Shirt had a thing at the Baked
Speaker 1: Potato and we sat down at the Baked Potato and
Speaker 1: we talked. There was a really unique, beautiful power. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just we had that moment and we connected. But
Speaker 1: I was married, and it was, you know, we just
Speaker 1: that was it. We did not having having at all.
Speaker 1: It was just that next night, me and Sharie went
Speaker 1: to dinner and I sat down with Shari and it
Speaker 1: was one of the most bizarre emotions I ever had.
Speaker 1: After we had that talk and we were at the Palm,
Speaker 1: and I remember I had to get up from dinner
Speaker 1: when I had a realization that I wasn't with the
Speaker 1: person I was supposed to be with. But you would
Speaker 1: have stayed with her forever, forever, I would have never
Speaker 1: gotten divorced. I went in the bathroom at the Palm
Speaker 1: and I broke down in tears. And I was sitting
Speaker 1: in a stall in the restaurant and I was crying
Speaker 1: uncontrollably and then laughing, like what the heck is wrong
Speaker 1: with me? And I was crying and laughing, and it's
Speaker 1: like I knew that was the woman I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be with, but I was never getting divorced. I
Speaker 1: don't get divorced. All the emotions at one time that
Speaker 1: you figured it out, figured it out, but devastated emotionally.
Speaker 1: And then I had never come to fish. It never
Speaker 1: was never gonna happen. I just had to get my
Speaker 1: gangster back together, and I got myself together, went back
Speaker 1: out and set down with she read and went started
Speaker 1: going back on with my life. And then she divorced you,
Speaker 1: and then she read she filed for divorce. She hit
Speaker 1: me hard. She refiled for divorce on Valentine's There, I
Speaker 1: was like out out and I still told her, I
Speaker 1: say no, you can't have a divorce, and she hit
Speaker 1: me with the so you're gonna make somebody stay with
Speaker 1: you who doesn't love you? And I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: were not? No, I'm not, And I was like that
Speaker 1: was the one that got me. And I remember I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm gon signing divorce papers. I walked out
Speaker 1: of there and I was in the car and I
Speaker 1: had Jada's number. I literally walked right out from there.
Speaker 1: I called Jada because you had moved back to Baltimore,
Speaker 1: bought a house in Baltimore. She was not going to
Speaker 1: live in Hollywood. She had left the business and bought
Speaker 1: a farm in Baltimore. That's amazing about a farm. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: Jada was up as well. She said, hey, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I said good. I said, are you seeing anybody? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, and she said, uh no. I said, cool,
Speaker 1: you're seeing me now, And my dumb mass was like, okay.
Speaker 1: She got on a plane, came back to l A.
Speaker 1: Never never spent one night in her farm in Baltimore,
Speaker 1: never spent one night in the house. Actually kind of sad.
Speaker 1: I always know how much you wanted to have that
Speaker 1: kind of life. You know, it's okay because I got you.
Speaker 1: But it's just like everything happens for a reason, exactly.
Speaker 1: And then we started dating, and then I got pregnant
Speaker 1: two years in. I knew the moment after the act
Speaker 1: that I was pregnant the moment, but I knew that
Speaker 1: night and he didn't believe me, but I knew. And
Speaker 1: it was almost like you know those big locks on
Speaker 1: the bank, that those big turning locks. I could feel
Speaker 1: that in my womb and my uterus. It was like
Speaker 1: It was literally for seconds after we had sex and
Speaker 1: she goes, I said, baby, okay, she's like pregnant. I
Speaker 1: was like, it was like, babe, I think scientifically you
Speaker 1: got pregnant. Scientifically you're not pregnant yet. I cried that
Speaker 1: whole night. She cried all night. I was like, my
Speaker 1: life is never going to be the same. I funny,
Speaker 1: we want to they were funny. I was like, what
Speaker 1: am I gonna do now? I really didn't want to
Speaker 1: get married, but we only got married because Gammy was crying,
Speaker 1: well Gammy when it was almost as if Gammy was like,
Speaker 1: you have to get married, so let's talk about the wedding.
Speaker 1: It was almost like that. And she completely just was like,
Speaker 1: that's not a reality where you're just so much pressure,
Speaker 1: you know, being a young actress, being young, and I
Speaker 1: was just pregnant. I just I was just like, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do, but I just knew. I
Speaker 1: was like, I never wanted to be married. I don't
Speaker 1: remember that. I remember feeling very strongly and wanting you
Speaker 1: guys to be married. I do remember that, but I
Speaker 1: don't remember your rejection of the idea of marriage. I
Speaker 1: remember the rejection of the idea of a wedding. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to. I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: get married, and now gave me. Then gone to Will
Speaker 1: crying about I don't want to have a wedding and
Speaker 1: now I'm being forced to have a wedding when really
Speaker 1: I just wanted it to be the two of us
Speaker 1: on a mountain, because I was like, this is serious business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that I didn't respect your wishes. I was
Speaker 1: totally a selfish I never had that experience of my
Speaker 1: daughter getting married because you were my only child. But
Speaker 1: that was so selfish. It's okay, I mean it was
Speaker 1: right for you to marry, but not necessarily that to
Speaker 1: have a wedding. Because the wedding was horrible. It was
Speaker 1: a mess, Jade. It was sick. She was very unpleasant
Speaker 1: when she was sick. She didn't cooperate with anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so she was having my first Oh it was horrible,
Speaker 1: and I was so upset that I had to have
Speaker 1: a wedding. I was so pissed. I'm crying down the
Speaker 1: freaking getting married. Cried the whole way because there was
Speaker 1: one question I forgot to ask. She said that she
Speaker 1: never wanted to get married. Did you. There wasn't a
Speaker 1: day in my life that I wanted anything other than
Speaker 1: being married and having a family, like the literally five
Speaker 1: years old, I was picturing what my family would be.
Speaker 1: What was the fundamental bump about the idea of marriage
Speaker 1: in general that you were against. I just never really
Speaker 1: agreed with the constructs. I just don't agree with it.
Speaker 1: I never have. I still don't till death do us part.
Speaker 1: It's real for me, it's just all of the rules.
Speaker 1: And as a wife, you know, yeah, exactly right, because
Speaker 1: of this title wife is the conventional definition of wife
Speaker 1: in the paradigm. I'm not that. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've ever said this, you know how, I'm a scientist,
Speaker 1: so everything is science for me. I read something when
Speaker 1: we first got together that the most successful men in
Speaker 1: history have been married, right, and for me, I knew
Speaker 1: that I would squander my life if I was running
Speaker 1: around the way my mind works, I can only excel
Speaker 1: for a woman like I can't like that though. I
Speaker 1: think that I think women are are true motivators for men.
Speaker 1: And the one thing that I think has has been
Speaker 1: the greatest motivator and asset for me with you is
Speaker 1: your absolute refusal to accept anything from me other than
Speaker 1: the best that I could possibly be, and vice versa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember me and Mommy talk for hours in the morning.
Speaker 1: There's something about that first thing in the morning that
Speaker 1: we we literally can talk for two and a half
Speaker 1: three hours. But you can do that anytime in the day.
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you, because that was one of
Speaker 1: the things that I admired so much about your relationship,
Speaker 1: and I recognized that I didn't have it in mind.
Speaker 1: It's so important. There was a moment that launched our
Speaker 1: communication before we got married. We were having the party
Speaker 1: at the house. Remember that we were playing pictionary, new
Speaker 1: people around the table and Tray is sitting on my lap.
Speaker 1: He's like one, and he's like, team might be just
Speaker 1: about two in some order. She cursed at me in
Speaker 1: front of twenty people at this party. She's like, well,
Speaker 1: would you shut the up with Trey sitting on my lap? Right?
Speaker 1: And I grabbed the newspaper and I said, and I
Speaker 1: talked to you in another room place and I was like,
Speaker 1: this joker just hit me on my head with a newspaper. Dog.
Speaker 1: We went in the other room and I was like,
Speaker 1: I said, Jada, this is the deal. I grew up
Speaker 1: in a household where I watched my father punch my
Speaker 1: mother in the face. And I will not create a
Speaker 1: house space and interaction with a person where there's profanity
Speaker 1: and violence. If you have to talk to me like that,
Speaker 1: we can't be together. We're not going to use any
Speaker 1: profanity in our interactions. We're not going to raise our voice,
Speaker 1: We're not going to be violent. I can't do it.
Speaker 1: She was like, you're not gonna be hit me my head.
Speaker 1: I said, get out, and she was looking that was
Speaker 1: the dumbest crap she had ever heard, and she was like, wait,
Speaker 1: so you would break up with me over some words.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I just did it. I was like,
Speaker 1: we're not cursing, and her eyes welled up with tears
Speaker 1: and she was like, okay. It was twenty years before
Speaker 1: we used profanity in any conversation that we had. We
Speaker 1: didn't use any profanity and any never raised our voices.
Speaker 1: We took communication courses all of that, and never had
Speaker 1: a violent never voices. We couldn't afford to. We just
Speaker 1: couldn't because it could get ugly. We wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: able to nurture kindness love. What do you do with
Speaker 1: our feelings. With the emotion that comes when you're angry,
Speaker 1: you really have to discipline yourself. Like for me, I
Speaker 1: had to discipline myself and really handle that within myself
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, what are you angry about? And then
Speaker 1: come to peace and then go and talk to Will
Speaker 1: when I can actually have a communication, because really you're
Speaker 1: not communicating when you're talking to anger. Yeah, what I
Speaker 1: realized is like you're beating up on someone you say
Speaker 1: you love, right versus handle that with yourself. There's been
Speaker 1: plenty of times we have to go, I can't do
Speaker 1: this right through your thoughts and gos, go cry, go curse,
Speaker 1: go kick a tree, deal back in the situation when
Speaker 1: you're calm and peasable, because then you just create more
Speaker 1: problems mad about how you got to the argument, what happened,
Speaker 1: what you said, what you did, because you can never
Speaker 1: put it back. And that was one of the things
Speaker 1: we learned really early. Apologize a thousand times. You never
Speaker 1: get it back and you get addicted to it. Also, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not that you get addicted, like like if you
Speaker 1: keep on doing it once you call somebody a couple
Speaker 1: of times, it's real easy. It's easy to telling you,
Speaker 1: we will were not the ones. We were not the ones.
Speaker 1: We would get hurt all kinds of stuff. It would
Speaker 1: have gone bad, and we both instinctually we knew that
Speaker 1: it could go wrong. I pre planned the things that
Speaker 1: I would say when I was in that place, so
Speaker 1: I had stock things. I would say, Um, I'm impaired.
Speaker 1: I can't I can't be loving right now, I can't
Speaker 1: be kind right now, So you have to let me
Speaker 1: go and when I come back, I will come back
Speaker 1: in a way that is the way you deserve me
Speaker 1: to deliver myself to you. Or he would just be like,
Speaker 1: I'm a lead before I knock your head off. You
Speaker 1: know what I think is really strong. And the thing
Speaker 1: with the two of us that never got out is
Speaker 1: the intention. We were always in sync on a couple
Speaker 1: of really powerful ideas. We were always building a family. Always,
Speaker 1: we were always that was our number one priority with
Speaker 1: family that until this day, no matter what, family, no
Speaker 1: matter what, so everything else that might have gone awry
Speaker 1: or crazy, we had cross intentions sometimes that that made
Speaker 1: us collide right. That was one of the major difficulties
Speaker 1: that we had because externally every was beautiful. As a couple,
Speaker 1: we are magical. We win in the material world, and
Speaker 1: we do it together. We win right, the Karate Kid
Speaker 1: with my Hair Hawthorne and the Nobel Peace Prize. Our
Speaker 1: family did that within a six month period. Right. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm parenting to hell out these kids, like
Speaker 1: we are killing this show on Hawthorne. The only interview
Speaker 1: that Barack Obama did when he won the Nobel Peace
Speaker 1: Prize was me and Mommy. Right externally, our family was winning. Right,
Speaker 1: And there was a period where Mommy woke up and
Speaker 1: cried forty five days straight. I started keeping a diary,
Speaker 1: Damn you miss some days. It was every morning. I
Speaker 1: think that's the worst I've ever in our marriage. I
Speaker 1: was failing miserably, but on the outside, I was winning.
Speaker 1: Like I built the house and called the house her lake, right,
Speaker 1: And during that time is I remember saying like, I
Speaker 1: built this house for you. I called it her lake,
Speaker 1: and she said, you built this house for you? And
Speaker 1: I was like, what did you talk about, Jada. But
Speaker 1: it was devastating for me to accept that I built
Speaker 1: the house for me, because in my mind I was
Speaker 1: saying I was building it for her, but I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wanted this house I called it her lake as
Speaker 1: an ego cover, right, and Jada was calling me on that. Right.
Speaker 1: What I realized is I was building a pick. Sure.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a household where I was scared
Speaker 1: and watched my father beat my mother up, right, So
Speaker 1: I was going to build the complete opposite of that.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be wonderland. Everybody's going to be happy all
Speaker 1: the time. Come on, well, let's play. I was saying, no,
Speaker 1: all the way, the house is too big, will not
Speaker 1: this will? And he had a picture at a picture,
Speaker 1: and I had a public person had public that wanted
Speaker 1: to projectives of our relationship of the family and what
Speaker 1: my kids are and what my wife is and what
Speaker 1: we are in the world. Didn't you ever feel like
Speaker 1: Jada was ungrateful? Hey, yeah, look at everything that I've
Speaker 1: done for you. Yes, that was another crateful. But that
Speaker 1: was the other thing, because there were times I felt
Speaker 1: ungrateful because I was like, look at your life, How
Speaker 1: could you be so unhappy? I used to think I
Speaker 1: was crazy, and I think that's actually how how I
Speaker 1: felt when I first got wind of your discontent. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that I thought that you were ungrateful. I just
Speaker 1: didn't understand, like, what's wrong? What what? What's what could
Speaker 1: possibly be wrong? But that's why I couldn't talk to it.
Speaker 1: And that's what. But Jada is an actress, but she
Speaker 1: had two babies and she had to be home to
Speaker 1: raise her babies while I got to do everything I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. She was sacrificing herself to fit my picture.
Speaker 1: But my life was it really disrupted in the least, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that was the if there were an individual.
Speaker 1: Most poisonous aspect of our relationship in the past is
Speaker 1: I felt that money and winning made a good relationship.
Speaker 1: We're succeeding in the world. That means our relationship is good.
Speaker 1: And I would say to him, I would go, will
Speaker 1: throw away everything that's happening in the outside world, your career, everything,
Speaker 1: and it's just me and you on a on an island.
Speaker 1: The way do we have? And I was like, we
Speaker 1: have an island. We own the island, you know, And
Speaker 1: it was like I so didn't comprehend that. So me
Speaker 1: and you on an island, what do we have? Not
Speaker 1: only did I not understand, I didn't care, right, I
Speaker 1: was unaware of what it meant to truly connect with
Speaker 1: somebody I've been trying to live up to an expectation
Speaker 1: full well, you know, you were trapped in a life
Speaker 1: that you didn't build, didn't want, and that I didn't want,
Speaker 1: but that I had to come to the understanding that
Speaker 1: I allowed myself to have. You accepted all of that
Speaker 1: because of your fear, absolutely, and that's the truth. And fear. Fear,
Speaker 1: just fear of not wanting to rock the boat I
Speaker 1: had kids, you know, and just whatnot, you know, because
Speaker 1: he's a force to be reckoned with just a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff you let slide and go past that angers
Speaker 1: you and you get resentment, you know, but you don't
Speaker 1: change it because you're scared. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's about fear. And that was around the time when
Speaker 1: Willow want, oh, I was so mad at you this
Speaker 1: day when you put your hand on my face. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And Willow, me and Jade are going through it and
Speaker 1: Willow was like, oh, Daddy, it's so sad. She's putting
Speaker 1: her hand on my face. She was like nine, and
Speaker 1: Jada was in the kitchen and she's like, Mommy, isn't
Speaker 1: it sad? Jada suit what he said. Daddy has a
Speaker 1: picture of a family in his mind and it's not us. Know.
Speaker 1: The thing is, it was such a deep truth, but
Speaker 1: I was just saying obvious out of me, isn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I think for me, the turning point in our
Speaker 1: relationship for me happened when I turned forty. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't as as like, I just I can't. I
Speaker 1: can't do this like this anymore. Next time at the
Speaker 1: Red Table we broke up, will and I really break
Speaker 1: it down. I was devastated, even worse than a divorce,
Speaker 1: and get ready for the next few weeks of red
Speaker 1: hot table talk. That's real talk. I hated being divorced.
Speaker 1: I hated everything about it. I felt because I was sick.
Speaker 1: He left, he started hitting me and he was in
Speaker 1: a rage, and I went through the bedroom and right
Speaker 1: across the street to neighbor. I was hurt, but Jada
Speaker 1: I wasn't even considering. I know that she would be hurt.
Speaker 1: H If I celebrate anything black, I inevitably get a
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