Over the last five years, actress Jada Pinkett Smith has made more than a few headlines for being radical in sharing her truth. The public initiation of this ‘radically honest’ era occurred in 2018 when Jada alongside her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris and daughter Willow Smith launched their talk show Red Table Talk where they intentionally discussed a variety of topics, not shying away from sharing previously undisclosed details of their personal lives and experiences.
During the course of the show’s duration, there have been several notable (and viral) instances where the discussions at the infamous red table caused an uproar of discourse across Beyoncé’s internet. Incidents including the Jordyn Woods vs. Kardashians scandal, the entanglement with August Alsina, and the episode in which Jada and her life-partner Will Smith had a candid, yet limited discussion regarding the dynamics of their marriage. Seemingly, the popular talk show soon became a catalyst for the beginning of the end of the Pinkett-Smith family as we (the public) knew it. At one point in time the backlash and criticism of the famous family appeared to be a topic of discussion and scrutiny every other week. But while many of the scandals mainly involved both Jada and Will as a unit, the majority of the blame was placed on one side of a two sided relationship. According to nearly everyone with an opinion on the couple, the person responsible for the mishaps of the dysfunctional marriage was — Jada.
Which, as a Black woman in America (or anywhere for that matter) isn’t much of a surprise. Appalling maybe, but not surprising in the least bit. Historically, Black women have been the mules of the world in the eyes of society and have been treated as nothing more from the beginning of our existence to the present day. And as hard as it is for me to admit this, for a (very brief) time I felt the same way as the vast majority as it pertained to Jada’s sudden urge of wanting to outwardly air her dirty laundry. That initial ideal can be attributed to the inherited and dated Black cultural heirloom expression of, “what happens in this house, stays in this house."
Prematurely and ignorantly I — as have many others — judged her decisions based on my own lack of awareness of self and my unconscious dedication to misunderstanding her purpose in practicing transparency to this extent. I felt that she was oversharing and unnecessarily putting herself under fire and for what?
The conclusion I arrived at were words I’d only understood at the surface level, until now. Zora Neale Hurston expressed it perfectly when she declared,
“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
Black women know all too well and often how it feels to be admired in one moment then criticized in the next when we open our mouths to tell our truth. As a collective of people, specifically Black people, and anyone else who has enjoyed the artistic works of Jada Pinkett Smith and the image of Black love she and Will Smith have epitomized, it’s understandable why the response to her pivot has been rich with confusion. I think it’s fair to acknowledge that almost always, it is within our human nature to dislike or reject what we don’t immediately understand. Especially when what she’s personified over the decades span of her very public career has been the beauty of Black love and the embodiment of what seemingly having it all looks like while still keeping her personal life private. However, times have changed and people evolve. Jada has morphed into another version of herself and in front of our eyes.
In her own words, “my journey from feeling unlovable to lovable is a worthy story to tell.”
She does exactly that and more in her memoir, Worthy that was released last week. Jada, who is also the narrator of her memoir (yes, listening to audiobooks definitely counts as reading) vividly recounts many of the experiences that have shaped, broken, and weighed on her. And, the perspective and empathy I’ve grown for her over the course of the book has not only shocked me, but has also been very enlightening.
The best way to describe it is that she has decided to “out” herself before anyone else has the audacity to, so to speak. Not out of fear but of deciding that withholding all that has consumed her for the worst should no longer be dragged along as her burden to bear or hide. To indulge in that kind of freedom is a concept not everyone can fathom.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s journey toward realizing her worthiness should be embraced, not condemned. Whether we agree with her process is irrelevant, because as much as the adverse reactions to her tour of transparency has garnered, it wouldn’t continue to be a trending headline had we stopped tuning in to know more. Yet, here we are still tuned in and paying attention to this woman’s work — the truth is tricky huh?
After all, I think I finally (to some extent) understand Jada’s intention in all of this. I believe that baring her truth is her way of showing us that joy is the metric.