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Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
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It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
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Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone and so much more.
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Let s learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You re free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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I m John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Guess what, Will?
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What s that, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
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I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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That was a really, really... That was a really painful time.
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I m sorry.
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Please welcome Jada Pinkett Smith.
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You want out of the pain.
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Only way out is death.
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Chris comes to the end of the stage and he looks at me deeply, sincerely.
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And he says... I also have a letter from Will.
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I wanted to share a trigger warning before this episode starts.
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This podcast includes discussions of suicide and self-harm.
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If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please seek help immediately.
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You re not alone and there is support available.
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Reach out to a mental health professional, a trusted friend or a family member or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
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That s 988.
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Before we jump into this episode, I d like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier, healthier and more healed.
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All I want you to do is click on the subscribe button.
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I love your support.
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It s incredible to see all your comments and we re just getting started.
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I can t wait to go on this journey with you.
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Thank you so much for subscribing.
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It means the world to me.
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Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.
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I m your host, Jay Shetty, and today is an extremely special episode for me because I m sitting down with one of my dearest friends, my sister, someone that I deeply love and admire in this world.
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And she s gone out and created something that I believe is going to be a gift to anyone who reads it.
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I ve just spent the last couple of months
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reading through her new book, myself.
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And I can tell you this, it is a journey of hardship.
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It is a journey of healing.
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It s a journey of growth.
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And it s a journey of learning to accept and embrace the discomfort that life brings to each and every one of us in so many different ways.
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And for that reason, I believe that when you read it, when you take out time to hopefully share it with your friends, your community, maybe you re gonna make it the next pick for your book club and dissect it and analyze it and reflect on it together, which I think it would be really powerful for,
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I hope that this book is going to help make you happier, healthier and more healed because I really believe it has the power to do that and guide you towards your greatest higher self in all areas of your life.
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Whether it be your career, your relationships as a parent, as a friend.
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I really believe that this book has the ability to uplift you as a person, as a parent, as a partner, and ultimately as a human trying to live and walk on this earth that can be chaotic and crazy.
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So I want to welcome to the show one of my dearest friends.
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Jada Pinkett Smith, who of course needs no introduction, but is an actor, producer, musician, host, now author and advocate whose career has spanned over 30 years.
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In 2018, Jada added a new element to her multi-hyphenate talents, one of host on the Emmy award-winning talk show titled Red Table Talk that I ve had the fortune of being a guest on so many times.
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It was one of the highlights of my career is when I was first invited on.
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And on the series, Jada, alongside her wonderful daughter, Willow, and her mom, Adrian, take a multi-generational approach to discussions that speak to social and cultural issues, which have encouraged open discussions and dialogue among hundreds of millions of people.
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And a new book is out right now.
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It s called Worthy.
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This beautiful cover made of so many wonderful images and a mosaic of tiny little pictures of Jada.
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But I want to encourage you all to grab a copy of this book.
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Welcome to the show, Jada Pinkett Smith.
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Jada.
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Jay.
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Now, Jay, before we start.
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Go on.
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Can I tell a story?
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You can.
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Okay.
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I had to let your audience know how this book even became, okay?
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They have to know, Jay.
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All right, so I visit you.
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I m here visiting because Swami s here.
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Radhanath Swami s here.
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And you had often said, Jada, you should write a book.
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I m like, Jay, I don t want to.
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So this day, once again, you re like, Jada, you should write a book.
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I m like, Jay,
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I don t want to write a book. 
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You re like, well, you should write a book, Jay.
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I don t want to write a book.
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We re going back and forth like siblings.
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Rodanath comes into the kitchen because Roddy s making a beautiful lunch for us to eat.
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He comes, he sits down, he goes, Jay, if Jada doesn t want to write a book, she doesn t have to write a book.
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And you go, well, I think she should write a book.
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And I was like, oh, did he just talk back to me?
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But I m going to tell you something, that was a really
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a moment for me, right?
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Because I d been pushing back for a long time and you talking to me about it.
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And that moment I was like, okay, I need you to take that home and I need you to think about it because Jay s your brother.
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There s something here that you might not be seeing.
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And it was really that moment that put me on pause.
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And a couple of days later, I was in meditation and it came to me and I said, oh my goodness, my journey from unlovable to lovable is a worthy story to tell.
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And I called you and I said, Jay, I got it.
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Thank you.
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You were so persistent about it, right?
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And I just want to thank you because honestly, and I m not, you know, if it hadn t been for that moment, that book wouldn t be here right now, right?
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And you really were on my neck about it for a long time.
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So I just want to say thank you because
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You also made it clear, you were like, you made it clear to me I would get a lot out of it, and I have.
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So I just want to say thank you.
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It s been such a deep healing process for me in ways that I could have never imagined.
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And what you said before, we even started in the introduction, just that hope of, it s so hard to find authentic happiness in this world.
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Even through my journey, my 52 years, and just trying to figure out how to be authentically
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happy has been such an excruciating process.
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And one of the purposes of this book is like, if I can help in any small amount of way, you know, in any way possible,
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to help somebody have an easier or just leave like little breadcrumbs, kind of like not a blueprint because everybody s process is different, but just little breadcrumbs of how to find that for yourself.
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Because it has been really difficult for me.
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So thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Well, thank you for sharing that with me.
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And I think I blocked that memory out because I don t think I ve ever tried to stand up against Rathanaswamy, my teacher before.
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I think that would, so I ve pretended that it did.
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For me growing up, reading autobiographies is what changed my life.
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And I think one of the things that I feel we struggle with today is that people s narratives
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are being told from so many different angles apart from their own.
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And when I grew up and I was reading the words of Martin Luther King or I was reading Malcolm X, I found there to be so much power in reading the words directly from an individual.
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And so
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even if that wasn t their autobiography, if it was their work, their words, you felt so intimately connected with that person.
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And I feel that when people move on and we don t have them on the planet anymore, it s almost like you lose this treasure house of experience and memories.
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And I also think that
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If someone s listening or watching right now and you re thinking, well, Jay, I would never write a book.
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I m not a public figure.
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I m not a celebrity.
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I m not a musician or an actor.
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I don t have a career path.
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That means I should be an author.
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I still think that telling your story, whether it s your family, your kids, is so important.
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I could not agree with you more.
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I think it s actually imperative that looking at your life on the page, like you forget experiences, you know, you forget like, oh my goodness, I did that?
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Oh, I went through that?
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Oh my God, really?
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I came through that?
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It s like, it s almost like an homage to yourself, honestly, to really be able to look at your life and go,
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Wow.
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What a life.
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I think everybody should take some time, even if it s just one, like, cause even with Worthy, I took one line, which was unlovable to lovable.
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So anything in regards to my life that was on that arc,
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I talked about, but there s so much more, so many other parts of my life, right?
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So even if somebody says, you know what, I just want to write down the happiest moments of my childhood.
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And I want to just look at that on paper, right?
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But whatever journey somebody decides to pick from their life and to examine thoroughly on the page, I would definitely suggest that because it is really powerful and it s so,
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healing and it will teach you so much about yourself.
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Absolutely.
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I couldn t agree more.
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I couldn t agree more.
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Let s, let s dive in.
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Okay.
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Because that journey of being unlovable to lovable as you re tracing there, I think it s a journey that we all have to walk in our own ways.
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And I think when, you know, I met you, I think five years ago now, we ve just spent a lot of time together in the last five years.
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Hence, we have a deep connection.
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But when I first met you, I was looking at you from the outside.
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And over the last five years, I ve got to know you through an inner journey and, and, you know, through family as well, and through spending time with your family.
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And what I found was that
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we often lose context when you view someone s life from the outside, and when you get closer, the greatest thing you get is context.
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And so I wanted to start off, and this book does that so well, but I wanna start off of what does it feel like growing up with a teenage mom who has an addiction?
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I think that that is so formative in so many ways, and it s so easy to forget that that s where you started because of your career.
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Growing up with my mother,
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It s like we grew up together.
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It s almost like having a big sister.
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I mean, even to this day, it s like I get to have two roles in my mom.
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Sometimes she s still my big sister and then sometimes she really comes in as my mother.
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You know what I mean?
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As you saw in the book, it s like I had all this freedom, running crazy in the streets, what have you, but there was such pivotal moments where Adrian came to the rescue as my mother, right?
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And she still does that to this day.
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But it was, you know, I did a lot of,
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having to raise myself.
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And there are parts of that, there s pros and cons to that.
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There s a lot of pros.
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It s like, that is the part that made it possible for me to come to LA at the age of 18 on my own and figure this Hollywood game out, right?
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Just with no fear, completely fearless.
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But then also kind of growing up with certain ideas of what I thought
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love was or certain survival mechanisms that, you know, as I got older, didn t quite serve me.
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But I think that we all have that no matter what our family background is.
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You know what I m saying?
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We all kind of pick up things that along the way that don t serve us for the entirety of our journey.
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I tell you, I learned a lot having a young mom.
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at an early age.
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I really do think that even with our trials and our challenges that the Great Supreme gave me, the mom I was supposed to have and the most perfect mother and the journey that I was supposed to have to prepare me for other parts of my journey.
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But you know, it was challenging and beautiful at the same time.
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Yeah, and I love Gammy, so I just want to put that.
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Yeah, we all love Gammy.
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We all love Gammy.
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Yeah, but it s really interesting.
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There was one line in your book that really kind of cemented that
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feeling of unlovable to me from that time.
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And you said there was a time when you felt like you were not being a priority to the two people who gave you life.
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Yeah, that was hard.
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That really hit me because I was like.
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Yeah, that was probably really difficult.
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And like you had two parents
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who drugs were their focus and the lifestyle that came with it.
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You know, I also talk about in the book when my father told me at seven years old, I can t be your father.
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And it s just like, wow, okay, what do I do with this?
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What does a seven-year-old do with that?
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You just kind of internalize it and you kind of go, okay, what s wrong with me?
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What is it about me that I m not enough?
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for these two people to look at me as a priority.
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Because I see everybody else s parents, and it looks like their kids are their priority.
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So what s wrong with me?
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So you kind of, I internalize this idea of not being enough, not being lovable.
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And it s strange because it s not that I didn t feel like my mother didn t love me.
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It s just that, am I lovable enough
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to be the priority?
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Am I lovable enough to, for you to show up for me as the mom that I see other moms be, you know?
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So I definitely internalized that.
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And I think that I took that into the world of like, I m just gonna prove, constantly having to prove myself.
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And I m lovable, I m lovable enough, I m lovable enough.
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And I think that was some of the messaging that I took
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from my childhood into my adulthood.
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And I appreciate you going back to that seven-year-old self because
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in hindsight, and now looking back, you can make sense of it and you can connect the dots.
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But it s like, when you re actually in that position, it s very natural, as you said, to just internalize it.
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And I think that what s really interesting with your journey is we all have to develop the emotional skills our parents didn t have.
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And the earlier we do that, the easier and simpler life becomes.
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but often most of our energy goes in thinking, well, I wish they had them or they should have had them.
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And when I m listening to you, what I m hearing is that it s not even the belief that they don t love me or love me enough.
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It s the belief that somewhere inside I am not lovable.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Right.
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It s, it s, it s so inside you, it s not even about them.
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It s like, I m not valuable.
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I m not,
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Yeah, it s because that s your mirror at first, right?
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And it s so complicated and nuanced.
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Do I believe my father loved me?
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Of course, in the way that he could.
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I think that he felt the most loving thing he could do was tell me
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I can t be your father.
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And I respected that, even at seven, because I was like, at least somebody s telling me the truth.
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I ve always respected hardcore truths.
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That is one thing about me.
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I respect hardcore truths.
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Doesn t mean I always like them.
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But I freaking respect them.
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At seven.
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That s a gangster, hardcore truth to tell a child.
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But then at the same time, that seed within me that is like, well, are all men like that?
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Like, if my dad doesn t love me,
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How is any man going to love me?
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I didn t realize that at seven.
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That s when I started getting into like 16, 17, when I start, you know, having those kind of intimate relationships with men and realizing, oh, wow, that I m real.
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This area is
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This area is quite unhealthy.
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You know what I mean?
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I m just like how I viewed myself.
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I was either giving too much or not enough.
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I m either hot or super cold.
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You know, emotionally.
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And so trying to regulate and understand because, you know, my understanding is that a young girl s first relationship and understanding of love is with her father.
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I didn t have that at all.
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So I m still learning.
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I m still really immature in that area of just emotional development around
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intimacy with masculinity.
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I know that now, whereas before, I didn t know that.
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Yeah, you re not aware.
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I m not aware.
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Like, this is just what it is.
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And then growing up in an environment with so much violence and so much aggression and, oh man, it was like, what do you do with all that?
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And trying to just like unpack all of it to just figure out like, oh, life is about love.
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It s not about power and ego and winning and losing.
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I mean, it s taken me, I m 52 just now understanding that.
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It s been a wild ride, but you know what?
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Every day I thank the Great Supreme for the journey and just for giving me the awakenings, the little awakenings that I get about love and just my willingness to have it, you know, really wanting to understand what love is all about.
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But I do have to give my grandmother a lot of credit.
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Yeah, I was going to talk about it.
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Yeah, Marian really
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I had all these different seeds that were planted in me.
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And Marion s seed, that goes to show you how the legacy of love
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will overpower everything.
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It is the legacy of love that my grandmother instilled in me and also the desire to search.
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She always had me understand that the world is full of treasures.
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Get out there and find them.
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She instilled that in me at a very young age.
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And she also instilled in me that I was special, but I was her first girl child.
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You know, I was her first grandchild.
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There you go, make an excuse.
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Right, I m just saying, you know, I was her first grandchild.
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And so she really made me think that I could be and do anything.
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Being the child of two addicts on one side, and then my grandmother instilling in me, like, no, I m telling you, you got something, kid.
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You know what I mean?
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And so just being able to hold on to those seeds that she put within me.
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And then of course my mother encouraging me along the way too.
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My mother saw some really beautiful stuff in me as well.
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And she s been one of my biggest cheerleaders and champions throughout my life.
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Absolutely.
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If your grandmother saw you today, what would she say?
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Oh my goodness.
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My grandmother would be so proud of me.
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Through it all.
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Like with the good and the challenges.
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She had a very challenging life, extremely.
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And what she was able to make out of her life as a
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immigrant, you know, child of two immigrants from Jamaica.
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She became pregnant at 13.
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To this day, we don t know how that happened.
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We do believe that it was a mistake and it wasn t that she was raped or molested or, you know, I never
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got that from her.
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I always got that it was her lack of knowledge about sex that created that circumstance.
2
SPEAKER_00
And she had that baby on her own.
2
SPEAKER_00
She was pretty much abandoned and she was taken in by a family through a foster, a white family who she worked for as a maid and got herself to Howard University and was able to go to India as an ambassador.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, she went to India.
2
SPEAKER_00
and came back and my grandfather, who was studying to be a doctor, asked her to get married.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I think she would be and is very proud of me with it all.
2
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s special to feel that, that it s nice to look back.
2
SPEAKER_01
So Jada, at the start of this book,
2
SPEAKER_01
you talk about how you were, and this broke my heart, you were talking about how you were planning taking your life, but then how it could look like an accident.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that was 2011.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was my 40th birthday, my 40th year, actually.
2
SPEAKER_01
When I was reading that, I was just thinking to myself, I was like, what were you hoping that would achieve?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, what were you hoping that would solve?
2
SPEAKER_01
Talk us through that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s funny because when you re in those states, you re not clear.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not like it s going to make rational sense, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You want out of the pain and you cannot imagine your only way out is death.
2
SPEAKER_00
You think in your mind you ve tried everything.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, it s all like, God, I can t do this.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can t keep doing this.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so that s your only solution.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I tell people all the time, you know, we ve had a lot of different spotlight of people taking their life.
2
SPEAKER_00
People go, I cannot believe it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, you just never know what somebody s going through.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there are certain people that have a high tolerance for being able to put on a good face in order to not burden people.
2
SPEAKER_00
But what is really interesting is that when you have a plan,
2
SPEAKER_00
sometimes that gives you enough energy to just keep going.
2
SPEAKER_00
Cause you re like, okay, I got a good plan.
2
SPEAKER_00
So if this gets really bad, I know where to go.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, okay, I m just going to keep trying to figure this out and keep trying to figure this out.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I got this plan.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s really tough because you don t want to, for personalities like myself, you don t want to burden anybody.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, look, if I can t figure out how to get out of this, nobody else is going to be able to figure this out either.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was a really, really... Painful.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a really painful time.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m sorry.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, don t be sorry, Jada.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m really grateful that I found a way out.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I think about people who will find it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I wish, I wish
2
SPEAKER_00
There was like one thing I could say, one piece of advice, you know, like what would you tell somebody?
2
SPEAKER_00
in a situation like that, and all I could ever say is, please, just keep going.
2
SPEAKER_00
Keep trying, keep walking.
2
SPEAKER_00
Trust, because if you trust, and I know how difficult it is, you know, for people who are in it, like, that s easy for you to say, but if you keep trusting, the universe will open a door.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I know how hard it is to just wake up
2
SPEAKER_00
and keep it going.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because for me, it was hard just waking up in the morning.
2
SPEAKER_00
If I could get to four o clock, I was like, okay, you made it another day.
2
SPEAKER_00
Being able to have enough strength to just get up, get out of bed, put clothes on, get through your day, and let no one know that you re struggling,
2
SPEAKER_00
It is so hard.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel really blessed.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, when plant medicine came my way, it saved my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I know that there s still a lot of whatever around plant medicine, but I m going to tell you like this, and I m not saying that that s for everybody, because my way out was a rugged four nights.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was just my thoughts.
2
SPEAKER_00
Thoughts about myself.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was just my self-hatred.
2
SPEAKER_00
The level of self-hatred you have that I have had to want to take my own life.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I had to walk four nights to clear up, look at, be with that level of self-hatred.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was like, you want to talk about walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I m really grateful for that experience because after that one night, I never thought about suicide again.
2
SPEAKER_01
After the ceremony.
2
SPEAKER_00
After the ceremony.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was really
3
SPEAKER_01
my last resort.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like, okay, this has been brought my way.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m going to try this.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it worked.
3
SPEAKER_01
Praise God.
3
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s a really painful place for me still.
3
SPEAKER_01
And just thinking about how many people are sitting in that place, it really breaks my heart.
3
SPEAKER_01
Trusting God, that s those moments where I just have to just be like,
3
SPEAKER_01
God, these are your children.
3
SPEAKER_01
You will take care.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I pray that, God, you will provide the door you have provided for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for being so vulnerable with us.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to give you a big hug.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can I come out and give you a big hug?
3
SPEAKER_01
You can give me a hug, Jerry.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I love you.
3
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you ve been such a wonderful friend.
3
SPEAKER_01
You really have.
3
SPEAKER_01
been by my side through some really tough stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
Only for more tough, only for more challenges to come along the way, but.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m so glad, I d never, you know, I wouldn t have had the fortune of getting to meet you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m really glad that you, you know, were so vulnerable with us just now, because I, I really feel like there s more people than we think that have those thoughts.
3
SPEAKER_00
Trust and believe it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Trust and believe it.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s people,
3
SPEAKER_01
there s people that you see every day that you would never believe.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s so funny to have that level of strength and that level of vulnerability and just, you know, despair.
3
SPEAKER_01
And at the same time, that level of like helplessness that could drive you to do something like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
But a lot of times we just don t know how to communicate it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t know how.
3
SPEAKER_00
And no one knew like the Will s kids.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh no.
3
SPEAKER_01
They knew I was very unhappy.
3
SPEAKER_01
That wasn t a secret.
3
SPEAKER_01
And people didn t understand why either.
3
SPEAKER_01
So let s talk about that for a minute.
3
SPEAKER_01
The shame that comes with
3
SPEAKER_01
those feelings.
3
SPEAKER_01
And specifically, like, everybody feels that level of shame.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t care what station of life you re existing in.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I would say, I m unhappy.
3
SPEAKER_01
And people would look at me like, I m crazy.
3
SPEAKER_01
What are you unhappy about?
3
SPEAKER_01
And so then I just went in even more.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because I was like, they re right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Look what you accomplished.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ve got this great family.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ve got a great life.
3
SPEAKER_01
You got the house, the car, this and that.
3
SPEAKER_01
What s your problem?
3
SPEAKER_01
So then that s a hot cup of shame.
3
SPEAKER_01
So then you just, I just shut down.
3
SPEAKER_00
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3
SPEAKER_00
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SPEAKER_00
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3
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3
SPEAKER_00
That s drinkjuni.com and make sure you use the code ONPURPOSE.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s such a great note to put out there because I think so many times we think like that about maybe our friends.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it s like you have so much.
3
SPEAKER_01
Someone that we know.
3
SPEAKER_01
You have so much.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
That language can be so.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and I would suggest to anybody, don t say that.
3
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Don t say that to somebody who s saying, I m having a tough time.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m struggling.
3
SPEAKER_01
You have this, you have that.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, what s going on?
3
SPEAKER_01
Tell me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Help me understand.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, as ridiculous as it may sound to you.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
To that person, that thought has been repeated so many times.
3
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_00
That it s become their reality.
3
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_00
Even if it seems ridiculous to you, like.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it can be so foreign, I get it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
But that is somebody trying to step out and talk.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we have to have, we have to be receptive and not to look at it, you know, and that is like, that s tricky too, because really being able to
3
SPEAKER_01
meet somebody where they are versus trying to meet somebody where you re at.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that in itself is a skill set.
3
SPEAKER_01
Just being able to go, okay, hold it.
3
SPEAKER_01
What am I missing here?
3
SPEAKER_01
Let me just take a minute.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let me blend with you.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let me join you.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t have that, and it s nobody s fault.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I m hoping that anyone who thinks anyone in their life is struggling will share what you just shared with us with them to start a conversation, to open up that dialogue.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because I think you just said it now, and it brought a thought to my mind that real love or real compassion is when you help someone get to the next step in their journey, not in your journey.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that means being able to be present with them wherever they are, even if it seems like a foreign alien land to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
I really feel like if anyone has anyone in their life who s struggling, please send that to them.
3
SPEAKER_00
Please share that with them because
3
SPEAKER_00
that they need to hear it from someone else who s been there sometimes also, because if you ve not been there, you may not know how to say, and I think that s the other thing, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
The other side is, one side is we say, oh, you should be happy, you re fine.
3
SPEAKER_00
The other side is we try and fix it.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can t, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you can t.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can t solve it.
3
SPEAKER_01
There isn t a perfect thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, you can t solve it.
3
SPEAKER_01
The best that we can do is you can try to meet them where they are,
3
SPEAKER_01
let s get help, we can do it together and hold hands and get them to someone professional.
3
SPEAKER_01
I will say it s really healing when someone can join you.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s also having that boundary of understanding too that you can only do but so much as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
A person has to really want help.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I would tell the person that might be struggling to just stay open to try everything.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, I tried everything until I found the thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And just keep walking until you find the thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
That obviously happens a lot later on, even though you start the book with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
But there was a time when you believed that Hollywood, having it all, would do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Would do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Even before you get to this point.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so, and also what I find fascinating is
3
SPEAKER_00
You grew up where like drug dealing was normal.
3
SPEAKER_00
You were in that scene, you were meeting people, everyone around you was in that scene.
3
SPEAKER_00
You weren t, as from what I gathered from the book and the time we ve spent together, there weren t a lot of people who were breaking that mold.
3
SPEAKER_00
What was it that made you A, believe that you could move to LA when you were 18 and break that mold and that you didn t have to fall into the pattern of everyone around you?
3
SPEAKER_00
And at the same time, secondly, what was it that made you believe that that would solve it, that that was what was missing?
3
SPEAKER_01
Thank goodness along the way I had great mentors like Donald Hicken, you know, at Baltimore School for the Arts that was like, Jada, you ve got more talent in the pinky of your little pinky than most people have in their whole bodies, you know.
3
SPEAKER_01
that he forced me to go into that audition for North Carolina School for the Arts, and that s what got me out of Baltimore, so that I could just get away from that lifestyle and break that mentality, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
And then once I got immersed again into my art,
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like, wow, I really love this.
3
SPEAKER_01
And once I click into something, like my mind goes, you know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
And then Pac came to LA.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, he wasn t in LA, he was in Northern California.
3
SPEAKER_01
And Pac kept saying, you got to get out here.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s poppin .
3
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
And now he s like, you got to come out here and visit.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I was like, all right, I m going to get out there.
3
SPEAKER_01
Pac was another one too, that was
4
SPEAKER_01
just like, you got it, Jada, you got it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, all right, I m coming.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I told my mom, I was like, you got two choices.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because I still wasn t quite sure yet.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was like,
4
SPEAKER_01
I could go to LA and see if I can do this Hollywood thing, or I could become a lawyer and take all my dramatics to the court, right, to the courthouse.
4
SPEAKER_01
And she said, we re going to LA.
4
SPEAKER_01
Once I got to LA, I was like, you re here.
4
SPEAKER_01
Make it happen.
4
SPEAKER_01
And part of what made me think that
4
SPEAKER_01
I could do it wasn t just about talent, but was just my perseverance and just my goal.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m a pit bull when it comes to when I want something, especially in my youth.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m not so much a pit bull anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
But in my youth, once I put my mind to something, I was like, go get it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I really felt like how everybody else feels.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, yo, once I make it, once I m rich and famous, all my problems are going to be solved.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_01
All my problems are going to be solved.
4
SPEAKER_01
My mom s problems are going to be solved.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everybody s problems are going to be solved.
4
SPEAKER_01
I got this.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know what I m saying?
4
SPEAKER_01
And that was a trip because that wasn t the case.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that that s still prevalent.
4
SPEAKER_01
People feel like once you get to a certain level of success, you are exempt from the human experience.
4
SPEAKER_01
You are exempt from the human condition.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the truth is,
4
SPEAKER_01
That is not the case.
4
SPEAKER_01
And let me tell you, I had an existential drop in realizing, hold it, wait a minute, hold it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like my career is popping.
4
SPEAKER_01
I got money, I m hot.
4
SPEAKER_00
People are pursuing you.
4
SPEAKER_01
I got every dude everywhere wanting it, you know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_01
Like I can have anybody I want,
4
SPEAKER_01
Why am I not happy?
4
SPEAKER_01
God, now this wasn t the plan.
4
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t believe it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Cause that was the whole idea.
4
SPEAKER_01
You make it, you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
4
SPEAKER_01
You make it and life s great.
4
SPEAKER_01
And thank goodness at that particular point in time, I had Pac that I could go, like we could share that together because he was going through the same existential disappointment.
4
SPEAKER_01
He thought the same thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was like the beginning of just like, wait a minute, then if it s not this, then what is it?
4
SPEAKER_00
It s incredible that you had a supportive friend in Tupac.
4
SPEAKER_00
You had this amazing friend who was saying, you ve got this, you re talented and that can really help.
4
SPEAKER_00
And at the same time, there s a whole nother inner journey.
4
SPEAKER_00
that has to happen with it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that was externally, it was empowering, it was inspiring, it was great to have someone believe in you.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we all need that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And at the same time, it was like this other reminder of... The inner world was not together at all and being completely ignored.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it would take me years to realize that, that, oh no, it s not just about what s happening on the outside, Jada.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if your inner world is not your foundation, it s all sandcastles.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, I had a nervous breakdown.
4
SPEAKER_01
Then I moved to Baltimore.
4
SPEAKER_01
I get a farmhouse there and I m like, okay, I m just gonna get out of LA.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I m making a geographical move.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m like, I just gotta get back to my roots.
4
SPEAKER_01
I gotta get back to my roots.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then Will comes along and I m like, maybe that s it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I need a man, you know?
4
SPEAKER_01
And then it s like, latch onto that.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like, okay, that s my new Prozac.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, now it s his job to make my life better.
4
SPEAKER_01
That doesn t work either.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the ego is just attached to all these different exterior things until eventually, I had to crash into really having to look at the shambles of my inner world and rebuild it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I say rebuild it because I feel like when we re born,
4
SPEAKER_01
that inner world is intact, but I had to really strip it all down, Jay, to the bare bones, the bolts, and just start inwardly from the bottom and just build.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s been a wild ride.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s been a wild ride of what that means and what that looks like.
4
SPEAKER_00
When it comes to your friendship with Tupac, which you speak about so beautifully in the book, and it s so wonderful because we get an insight into him in a way that you don t as just a fan of the music.
4
SPEAKER_02
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
So as someone who grew up listening to him myself, it s like you get a certain perception.
4
SPEAKER_00
of someone who s intelligent, but then also has this gangster lifestyle, persona, et cetera.
4
SPEAKER_00
But then again, when you get context and you get to know about someone through someone who actually knows them.
4
SPEAKER_00
And what I really appreciate, which I found fascinating was just how you had the wisdom at that time to know that someone would be a special friend without being romantic with them.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Talk to us about it because I feel like a lot of people struggle.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
He was obviously into you when you first met, et cetera, the way you describe it, but it s like,
4
SPEAKER_00
And there s even one point where you dare him to kiss you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I don t want you to tell that, but what I find fascinating and what I want to help people with here is like, how were you able to create and build a relationship with someone knowing initially that it was based on some attraction, but actually you knew there was so much more to it?
4
SPEAKER_00
How were you able to
4
SPEAKER_00
allow that to unfold?
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I think so many of us get so scared if we re not into someone, we go, okay, I m just going to push them away.
4
SPEAKER_00
Or that person eventually tries to make a move anyway.
4
SPEAKER_00
But here it was like this beautiful respect, this, you both created that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we both did.
4
SPEAKER_01
We both had the intelligence, you know, we were both really young.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I think, thank the great Supreme for this too, that there was no,
4
SPEAKER_01
physical chemistry between us.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, literally.
4
SPEAKER_01
I try to explain this to people.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was the same for Pac.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was just like, when I dared him to kiss me,
4
SPEAKER_01
He was, I mean, it was like, ew, for us both, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s like, how can that be?
4
SPEAKER_01
How can you feel so connected to someone of the opposite sex?
4
SPEAKER_01
There was just this beautiful understanding.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know when you can just sit with somebody in a room and you don t have to say a word?
4
SPEAKER_01
And there s just this level of comfort.
4
SPEAKER_01
We just knew each other.
4
SPEAKER_01
The moment Pac saw me and our eyes, and I saw his peanut head across the room at Baltimore School for the Arts.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was like, I knew him already.
4
SPEAKER_01
We just got each other.
4
SPEAKER_01
I just understood him in that understanding.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he understood me.
4
SPEAKER_01
So we could pull each other s coattails, but we could also join each other.
4
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When I talk about that joining, when you can sit with somebody and really feel like they see you, they understand you, they care about you, and they re going to be there by you no matter what.
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That was Tupac.
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He was going to ride with me no matter what.
4
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He was so authentic.
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And it s rare that that level of authenticity.
4
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And he was so, he had, wore his heart on his sleeve.
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And there was just this amount of loyalty between us.
4
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And I think also the fact that we both struggled with mothers who were addicts and we tried to compensate for one another of not having that
4
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piece.
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And we didn t boohoo about it.
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We understood how to fill in the voids without getting all hallmarky about it.
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You know what I mean?
4
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You know what I mean?
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And so it was, so we just kind of knew how to flow with each other in a way that was very comfortable.
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It s always hard to kind of explain because it was like, it s almost like he, he was really a kindred.
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That s the only way I could really explain it.
4
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And I feel so lucky and so blessed that I got to know a being like himself in that way.
4
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Cause he was such a dynamic person.
4
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but you can feel it because his music is still lasting for generations now.
4
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So he was just a treasure.
4
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Teach us, what s the difference between sexual chemistry and energetic connection or authentic connection?
4
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Because I think we often think that to get close to someone,
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you need that.
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And here, it s not just about the fact that there wasn t attraction or what it was.
5
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There s more to it in that.
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I feel like there s a subtle difference in how you were able to accept that there is a authentic connection, but it doesn t have to include physical chemistry in order to have a deep energetic connection.
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If that makes sense as a,
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I actually think in my experience, some of the deepest connections that I ve had with men have not included sex whatsoever, right?
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And I think that sex sometimes can cloud things.
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A lot of things come in that a lot of people don t understand.
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So, you know, whether it s like certain levels of emotional trauma, all these kinds of things.
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Energetically, the heart-to-heart spirit space has a level of purity to it, where even if things get difficult, like when things would get challenging with Pac and I, we could get to it fast.
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And there s just a level of purity
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and it s not attached to, I want to make things right with you so I can sleep with you.
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You know what I mean?
5
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It s not that agenda.
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The agendas are pure.
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They re more pure and it has more space.
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It s like, I love you, but you got to live your life.
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I love you.
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I can be truthful.
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I can be honest.
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I think that with us, I could be more of myself
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because one thing I knew about Pac, I never had to worry about, you know, when we had big blowups, which we did all the time, he s coming back.
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I never worried about that.
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I never worried about, oh my God.
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No, he ain t gonna, listen, whether it s a year, whether it s a year, a week, three days.
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I had to love all that Pac was.
5
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He loved all that I was, the good and the bad.
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he was going to be right there with that and vice versa.
5
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That was one of the most beautiful aspects of our relationship.
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We didn t have to fake it.
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We didn t have to pretend to be other things.
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And we could be honest.
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He could pull my coattails.
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I could pull his coattails.
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I could give him all the praise and love on him all I wanted to and not have to worry about
5
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Oh, now we re going to have to have sex.
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You know, like none of that.
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Cause that wasn t happening.
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We just didn t, we didn t have that chemistry.
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We just didn t have it.
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I think if Pac had survived Vegas, he and Will would have ended up being really good friends.
5
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You know, they would have had a lot to offer one another.
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And funny enough,
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Will was the only person, when I started dating him, Pac never said anything.
5
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If I dated anybody else, Pac had something to say.
5
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He didn t think anybody was good enough, which I understand, right?
5
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But when I started dating Will, he didn t say anything, which meant to me, in his own way, he approved.
5
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Right, he didn t say anything, which was like, okay, not a word.
5
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which made me believe he approved.
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Yeah.
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No, I think it s, it s so beautiful to reflect on that friendship because I think it s so hope giving to so many people who, you know, sometimes lose out on those kinds of relationships because we don t see where else it can go.
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Oh, it could go so many.
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There s so much value to that.
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And there s the, you know, the part in the book where you talk about how you never got to be there
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when Vegas happened, like you weren t there, you hadn t talked for a year, I think at the time, is what you said.
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Yeah, we had a big blow up.
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What would you have said to him or what would you say to him or what did you want him to know?
5
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Or what were you so sure that he already knew and you re thinking to yourself, I just wanted to remind him of this, what would that be?
5
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I didn t have to remind him of anything.
5
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He knew it.
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Pac knew, I adored him.
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I have no doubt in my mind that
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he left this world knowing that.
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What a great feeling.
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Yeah.
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That s never been the issue for me.
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We did that dance a lot.
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Sometimes have blow ups and we were, we re both very stubborn and I ll let people read the book to that blow up and what led to that.
5
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But I think sometimes what sometimes still hurts is that me feeling like maybe I couldn t,
5
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do enough once he left.
5
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Like I m thinking to myself, oh my God, what would Pac have done?
5
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Like if it had been me in a car in Vegas and got, you know, he would have wreaked havoc.
5
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So that ego sometimes comes into play, like just feeling so helpless that he was taken in that way and there was nothing
5
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I could do.
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To this day, that gnaws at me.
5
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you know, for what it s worth, I really believe that the way you write, and we, by the way, everyone who s listening and watching, there is so much more to unpack in the book, which I highly recommend you read as you re going through it and you ll come to this part, but I really believe that the way you honor and appreciate and respect your dear friend in the book is really beautiful and special.
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And it s like, it s hard to describe as well, but it s a really wonderful lens into a human
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That is so, you know, larger than life in so many ways.
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And I wanted to also kind of, there s been so many misconceptions about our relationship because people are like, you know, have a difficult time understanding that he and I could actually be friends, but just wanted to give people such, just an insight on, you know, the beauty of our friendship that I just cherish to this day so very much, you know, and I wanted to give people a different,
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outlook just of who he was and I ll say who he is because he still exists.
5
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Of course.
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You know, but so I really wanted that to come across.
5
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Well, we got to understand him, I think through you, through the perspective of
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not a rapper, not a icon, not a, but a human and a friend and like what he was like as a friend.
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And I think that that s a very intimate way to, to know about someone.
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So I love that.
5
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I wanted to talk to you about, you, you mentioned that you were like, Will was the only person that Tupac didn t have an issue with.
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And I love that.
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And you know how much, I mean, you know, I ve always been open about it and we ve talked about it.
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And I met Will through you and it s like, I,
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I ve always said that when I met you and the whole family and when I met him, you were everything and more.
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All of you are everything and more.
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Right.
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And what I mean by that is everything I d wanted you to be plus so much more.
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Right.
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And he s that too in so many ways.
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And I think that it s really interesting because when you re talking about in the book of like, I love the conversation you refer to when you re like, your mom s like, you know, get him off the phone.
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She s like, that s one of our moments.
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Yes, exactly.
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But what I love about it the most is that it is true that from the outside, as you set it up, it looks like a fairy tale and it felt like that.
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And what I find really fascinating about this again and again and again, pretty much with everyone is that
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there is no fairytale love anywhere on planet earth.
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And you know, in our own little way, I always talk about this with me and Radhi too.
5
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It s like, we ll do an interview together where Radhi will tell me all the challenges she has with me and she ll be crying and upset.
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And then everyone in the comments will still be like, you guys are so cute.
5
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And I m like, no, no, no.
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We re not trying to say we re cute.
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Like this is like real issues, like real stuff that, you know, we ve talked about it.
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Obviously you spend a ton of time with me and Radhi.
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And so I think for me, what s really interesting is that yes, from the outside, when you see two incredible actors, performers, artists, talent get together, you re like, wow, powerhouse couple.
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Everyone projects their expectations.
5
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You have beautiful, adorable kids, you know, like Jaden s acting and he s like,
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the cutest thing in the world and the willow too.
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And it s like, it s so interesting because we also, we like to build up our dreams in people.
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And we like to project our dreams onto people because I think
5
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as viewers, it makes us believe that it s possible.
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And we live through people and we aspire for it.
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Not that we aspire for the success and the fame, but that we aspire for the like, well, if they can get it right, then I can get it right.
5
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And it s not, it s an innocent belief that we all have.
5
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It s not a, we all have that inside of us.
5
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So we have, we all have this.
5
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I know that I had that, like, you know, I was, I was searched it the other day and it s a term, it s Disney princess syndrome.
5
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And I was like, I ve had Disney princess syndrome.
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like myself, like a ton of times.
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And it s so fascinating to me, for anyone who doesn t get the reference, the point is that every Disney princess is always looking for her prince.
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And I would say, regardless of gender, that s true.
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Like I feel that way where I ve been looking for my princess or my win or my award or whatever it may be.
6
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And
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I wanted you to walk us through like what were the stages and how would you define the stages as you do in this book, your stages of your relationship with Will?
6
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Because I feel that that s the part that people get blurry because they re looking at it through their lens.
6
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But you both have been so clear about stages of your relationship internally, which I actually think is the hardest part.
6
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And so how would you define the stages of your partnership with Will that help people understand like the conversations that you re having behind the scenes from like being madly in love to, you know.
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Yeah.
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The stages of getting to the most authentic and it s difficult.
6
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So I just want to honor that for a second.
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Like it s almost like talking about
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relationships and the romanticism around the idea of relating is sometimes
6
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as detrimental as talking about politics and God, because it s such a staple in how people look at marriage and relating culturally, right?
6
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And all of the romanticism around it.
6
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And Will and I have been what I would consider kind of the relationship goals.
6
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this romanticized version.
6
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I had to, in my own relationship with Will,
6
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dissolve my romanticism around what I thought marriage would be, should be.
6
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And honestly, we really never had what I would consider the ideal honeymoon stage.
6
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You know, even though you do have the honeymoon stage, but our relationship started with some challenges, you know, because he was divorcing.
6
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And then our life just took off like a,
6
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rocket ship.
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We just took on this huge life in our early 20s.
6
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And where his focus was really about, hey, I want to be the biggest movie star in the world.
6
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And I knew that.
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going into our relationship and I knew there would be sacrifices with that.
6
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And then along the way, and I talk about this in the book, just having those different perspectives and really trying to figure out how to reconcile those different perspectives.
6
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and also deal with a lot of challenges.
6
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So I think one of the things that I address in the book in regards to, you know, people thinking that we ve had an open marriage and we haven t had an open marriage.
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I talk about starting off pretty much early on in our
6
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marriage of having the need for transparency.
6
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And that is a big difference between, hey, you can do whatever you want, you know, versus like, hey, here we are, very young people in this place called Hollywood.
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that has a lot of temptation.
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Let s have a partnership around this.
6
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Let s be very realistic of what this life is.
6
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If we re talking about we re going to be together forever and ever and ever, that means there s going to be some temptations that come up.
6
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Let s be in partnership and let s talk about that.
6
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I didn t go into my marriage like, I am going to be,
6
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My husband is never, ever, ever gonna look at anybody else.
6
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You know what I mean?
6
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I am just a realist in a lot of ways.
6
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I know what it s been like for me.
6
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Right?
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When I first came to Hollywood and I could go into the clubs and have anybody?
6
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Just the level of just like, that just, you know what I mean?
6
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It s just like, you just, it s so intoxicating.
6
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That s one.
6
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Now, what I do believe that what people don t know that I talk about in the book a lot is that there ve been several breakups
6
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between Will and I. Will talks about it, my 40th birthday, which was a big breakup for us.
6
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We were actually looking towards separating and divorcing.
6
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And we separated.
6
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The world just didn t know.
6
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Then we had a reconciliation.
6
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And then 2016 came.
6
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and we had the ultimate break, but the world didn t know.
6
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And I think that that s where some of the misconception about having an open marriage came into play because we were living lives as single people.
6
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and the world didn t know.
6
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Over the span of 12 years of just trying to figure out this thing called love and marriage between Will and I, it s been a trip.
6
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And I think that even with that entanglement piece, which I talk about extensively in the book,
6
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how I played a part in the misconception of that narrative of allowing myself to be portrayed as an adulteress, allowing myself to be portrayed as someone that had betrayed Will.
6
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And that wasn t the case.
6
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We broke up in 2016.
6
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He went on to live a life as a single man.
6
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I went on to live a life as a single woman.
6
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And then when we had the talk at the Red Table, I was going to go to the Red Table by myself.
6
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to talk about the entanglement.
6
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But Will decided he wanted to come with me.
6
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And we were going to then tell the world, hey, we haven t been together.
6
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And this happened during that time.
6
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Well, when we got to the table, Will wasn t ready.
6
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He wasn t ready.
6
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He wasn t ready for the world to know that.
6
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I had to respect that.
6
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Well, I didn t have to, but I wanted to.
6
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But I was ready.
6
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I was ready to let go of the persona I had created around myself that had put me in a golden cage.
6
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I wanted to let that go.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so I had to stay on my journey.
6
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I had to stay on my path while also respecting
6
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That will wasn t ready.
6
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So I said, you know what?
6
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This is my mess anyway.
6
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I m going to take this heat because guess what?
6
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The heat is coming either way.
6
SPEAKER_01
Whether when we decide to get divorced, when we decide to separate, whatever, whatever.
6
SPEAKER_01
This is my practice run.
6
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Strip it down.
6
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Let it go, Jada.
6
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And then let s see what s left.
6
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I didn t have to put that particular show out, but I had already gotten myself so ready for that journey for myself.
6
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And to me, that was moving closer to my freedom than holding back.
6
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and creating a narrative that I felt like was just gonna entrap me more.
6
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And as difficult as it s been, because the irony is I spent so much of our relationship having this open communication between he and I, creating this beautiful friendship of authenticity and honesty.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so to be labeled as someone who had cheated on him was devastating, but it also put me in a position where I had to learn how to let go of what anybody thought about me and really be 10 toes down on understanding who I am and being able to walk in that
6
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no matter what anybody thought about me.
6
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But I needed that journey for myself.
6
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It s kind of like, that is the walk, when they talk about walking on hot coals, it s like creating that level of, when we talk about that inner world work,
6
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and creating that like strong foundation within yourself of knowing exactly who you are, no matter what other people think about you.
6
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I mean, I ve gotten that to a certain degree.
6
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And so that was a very challenging moment.
6
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And I talk about it in the book because I feel like so many people are challenged in that way of like, how can I just walk in this world?
7
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and be okay with myself no matter what.
7
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And I talk about the journey, you know, really extensively in the book.
7
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But there ve been so many misconceptions about my relationship with Will.
7
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But I think that everybody suffers misconceptions.
7
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Once again, whether you re
7
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head of the PTA and your husband s that doctor and you re the lawyer.
7
SPEAKER_03
You re like the crème de la crème of your friend group or of your community.
7
SPEAKER_03
And so everybody s expecting you to have a certain kind of marriage.
7
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And marriage is a journey.
7
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And it s a journey towards learning how to love yourself and learning how to love your partner.
7
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And there s not one way to do it.
7
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And everybody, I think we do that journey a real disservice of trying to make it this cookie cut thing.
7
SPEAKER_03
Like, no, no, no, you can only do it this way.
7
SPEAKER_03
And it s like each and every person in their relationship, they have to look at what their relationship is calling for in regards to what is needed to get your marriage
7
SPEAKER_03
to the love, to the strength, to the understanding, to the friendship, and to that unconditional place.
7
SPEAKER_03
And the unfortunate part is that we think once we get married, like somebody is ready-made.
7
SPEAKER_04
They know how to love you, even though they don t know how to love themselves.
7
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They don t know how to love themselves, but you better know how to love me.
7
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I wanna highlight because I think it s often, it can be missed at least is, you know, when you had that conversation on Red Table Talk, it would have been so easy to not have that conversation publicly because people would have their rumors, it would blow over and then it would be over.
7
SPEAKER_06
And I m only raising this because
7
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I know how much for you it was part of the work you were doing.
7
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And that s why I m raising this because I think what s really interesting is that when someone s trying to do deep inner healing work, actually more often than not, their external way will not make sense because it literally looks like you re setting yourself up
7
SPEAKER_06
to fail.
7
SPEAKER_06
Because when you re really trying to dismantle the ego or you re really trying to deconstruct the false identities that we all build up, me included, all of us, when that is there and it s being deconstructed, someone would look at you and be like, why would you do that?
7
SPEAKER_06
Why do I need to know?
7
SPEAKER_06
And really,
7
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I just want to highlight, and I want you to share about that, that the intention was healing.
7
SPEAKER_06
The intention wasn t to save face.
7
SPEAKER_06
And I know this because we were talking about it.
7
SPEAKER_06
The intention wasn t to... Yeah, it wasn t to save face.
7
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And it surely wasn t, and I need people to know, I didn t ask Will to come to the table.
7
SPEAKER_03
That was not my idea.
7
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Will wanted to come to the table because he didn t want me to be there by myself.
7
SPEAKER_03
He had all the best intentions.
7
SPEAKER_03
and got there and was, I think, his trauma response kicked in.
7
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Like, I m not ready.
7
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So many people were like, don t do this.
7
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And I m like, nah, I m doing it.
7
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For myself.
7
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For myself.
7
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Because I want to live.
7
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Because I m ready.
7
SPEAKER_03
I don t want this whole thing anymore.
7
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This whole Jada, Will, I m done with that.
7
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It was part of the work that I was ready for.
7
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And it was what I needed.
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And everybody s in different places in their journey.
7
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Also, that s also a dynamic I had to look at within myself in regards to, so it was two things.
7
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There s this healthy Jada s like, tear it down.
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I don t want that persona anymore.
7
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Tear my ego down.
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And there was this other part of me that was like, oh my God, I need to, you know,
7
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He s not ready, you know, he s not ready.
7
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My, you know, codependency kicks in and I go, this is what I do.
7
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I m the martyr.
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I can do the martyr thing.
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So once again, it s both things.
7
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It s healing.
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Like I m ready.
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Like I m ready for, I m ready for the tear down.
7
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And then this martyr that s like,
7
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and I want to make sure, Will, as long as you re okay, I m okay.
7
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That s part of my relationship with my mother s addiction that I brought into my relationship with Will, that created a certain dynamic within myself, in my relationship with him, that I also needed to get my eyes on that I didn t see, that that needed to be healed as well.
7
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Without that table,
7
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Without that moment, I would have never recognized that.
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As painful as it was for people to watch, existential disappointment in a collective.
7
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I m so sorry.
7
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I wish it could have happened another way.
7
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I m sorry that it had to be so messy in front of everybody.
7
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I m sorry.
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But,
7
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I needed that, what I got to clear up, what I got to clean up, what I got to see, and to be able to sit here with you today and embrace it all and have so much acceptance for myself for all of the choices I ve made.
7
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And people ask me, if you had to do it over again, would you do it any different?
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I don t think so.
7
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Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
7
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It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
7
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like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
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We re back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
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And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
7
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So let s figure this stuff out together.
7
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This season, we re going to talk about whether or not we re financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
7
SPEAKER_02
We re going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account.
7
SPEAKER_01
And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
7
SPEAKER_02
All that plus so much more.
7
SPEAKER_01
Let s learn about all of it and then some.
7
SPEAKER_01
Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
7
SPEAKER_00
A new season of Bridgerton is here.
7
SPEAKER_00
And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
7
SPEAKER_00
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
7
SPEAKER_00
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
7
SPEAKER_00
Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
7
SPEAKER_00
Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
7
SPEAKER_00
We re discussing it all.
7
SPEAKER_00
I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
7
SPEAKER_00
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
7
SPEAKER_00
Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
7
SPEAKER_00
Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
7
SPEAKER_05
When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
7
SPEAKER_05
Radios were smashed.
7
SPEAKER_05
Cassettes burned.
7
SPEAKER_05
You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
7
SPEAKER_05
And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
7
SPEAKER_05
This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
7
SPEAKER_05
The danger they endured.
7
SPEAKER_04
They said my head should be cut off.
7
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The joy they brought to the nation.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re free completely.
7
SPEAKER_00
No one is there to destroy you.
7
SPEAKER_05
I m John Legend.
7
SPEAKER_05
Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
7
SPEAKER_06
Honestly, like knowing and talking to you, I found it to be so courageous and so full of strength because it was putting yourself on the spot like in no other way.
7
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And I can t even begin to understand how uncomfortable it is.
7
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I only can from the conversations we had.
7
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Well, you were right there with me today.
8
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But the level of discomfort that you were willing to put yourself in, in order to let go of an identity, in order to let go of a perception.
8
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I m saying it in these words because I just want everyone who s listening and watching just to think about it for a second.
8
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Imagine you had to go in front of everyone you knew
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your family, your friends, your school, whoever it is that you re around, your people at work, and you had to share a secret that wasn t a secret between you and the person you re with, but was a secret to them.
8
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Just think about that, whatever that secret is.
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Everyone has secrets, everyone has something, you know, and to do that requires just so much courage and strength and
8
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It also shows the, I think you were just apologizing that it was so messy.
8
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I also think that it is uncomfortable.
8
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Like growth is uncomfortable.
8
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And like letting go of shedding identities is uncomfortable.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I m not comparing my experience to yours at all because it s not the same in any way.
8
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But I m trying to explain how like a tiny PDA, like my kind of version of it is still as big.
8
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I remember the day I told my friends and my family and my teachers that I no longer thought I could be a monk.
8
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And it sounds so small, like now looking back, but at the time as someone who was like, I was dedicating my life.
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You ve met my teachers.
8
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I m dedicating my life.
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I m like doing this big thing.
8
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And then all of a sudden I come to the conclusion that this thought in my head of I m not good enough.
8
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I m not a monk.
8
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I m not meant to be like, this isn t my path.
8
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I have other desires, whatever it may be.
8
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I think I should get married.
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You know, all this stuff.
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and you feel so much shame around the fact that you re not good enough and what are people going to say?
8
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And even for me, that was just my temple community and my friends and my family.
8
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And even then it was like as if someone was ripping my ego out of my chest because that s what it feels like.
8
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It feels like an extraction of, you know, not that I m egoless now, but that that was such a big way of crushing that part of my ego.
8
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And so I just want people to think about it through that perspective.
8
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And I m saying it because I think that we all go through periods in our life where people misunderstand us.
8
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We all go through periods in our life where the people we thought loved us and adored us will now be let down.
8
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We all go through experiences in our life where we have to let go of someone that we thought we were or what people thought we were.
8
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And those are gonna be the hardest, most painful times.
8
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And actually,
8
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if we can learn to be graceful instead of when our friends are getting divorced and we re like, did you hear so and so?
8
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We had that.
8
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A couple of people in my community back at home just got divorced.
8
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The whole community is talking about it.
8
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And I m just like, guys, we have no idea what was going on for the last 10, 20 years.
8
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Let s give them grace, because you never know when that could be you.
8
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You have no idea when it could be you.
8
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It s so easy to judge and throw stones at anyone and everyone.
8
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And I just really feel that.
8
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if we have the ability to be graceful and compassionate when other people are doing that, we ll actually do it with ourselves.
8
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And because we re hard on ourselves, we re hard on others.
8
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And because we re hard on others, we re hard on ourselves.
8
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And I just, for me, I just want to see more people be graceful for themselves and for others, because there s so much human experience wrapped up in it.
8
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So anyway.
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Yeah, that s my hope too, you know, that people can have,
8
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more grace for themselves.
8
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But I tell you, I think one of the
8
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saving factors was that, you know, there were no secrets between Will and I, and there were no secrets between my kids and I. So the fact that my family was absolutely aware of the entire journey, it was a saving grace for me.
8
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Whatever the world wants to think is whatever.
8
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You know, Will knows he was not betrayed.
8
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And my kids know that I did not betray their father.
8
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And that to me, all that matters.
8
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But it was quite a exercise of having to walk in the world like that, you know, having people think.
8
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that that s what happened.
8
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Just having that exercise in that way has been such a healing factor for me of just the level of self-love, the level of self-worth that I have because of what that experience has offered me.
8
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And I m not saying that anybody else should do it on that level.
8
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But what I am saying is that there are ego deaths that have to occur in order to get to a more authentic place of self-worth and self-love.
8
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And I want to talk about the little gurus as you call them in the book.
8
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We start with Trey who, you know, this book is dedicated to your daughter and the daughters of the people that read it and to your sons and to the sons of the people that read it.
8
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And I wonder what is it that you think you ve learned from Trey that you ve been taught by Jaden and that you ve been taught by Willow?
8
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in your journey with them all, because you have such a, whenever I ve seen you with them, you have such a deep, beautiful, rich relationship with your kids.
8
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We were talking about that earlier.
8
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I would love to know what is it that each of them have taught you.
8
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Trey, he has such an enormous heart.
8
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And I think what I love about Trey is his ability to meet people, join people where they are, his ability to join me.
8
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He has a way of seeing the best in people, no matter what, the best in circumstances, no matter what.
8
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And even in his most challenging times,
8
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challenging relationships, having the willingness to see the person s spirit versus personality.
8
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And he s always reminded me of that.
8
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You know mom, you know that person, you know what I mean?
8
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And I m like, you know what, Trey, you re right.
8
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He and I have kind of been walking parallel.
8
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We ll look over at each other and go, I see you.
8
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And he goes, I see you.
8
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You know what I mean?
8
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And so, you know, we re the two in the family that s really been
8
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on a intense walk spiritually.
8
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And he has so much perseverance in regards to understanding God, finding his way, understanding life.
8
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I don t know, he s just such a, he s such a light.
8
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So iron sharpens iron.
8
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He ll walk in the kitchen, he ll go,
8
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Mom, look at me, what do you think I m feeling today?
8
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You know what I mean?
8
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Or he ll look at me and go, wow, you know, you re like bright.
8
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What s going on with you?
8
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Like he can just see me and he could see people, you know?
8
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And I d be like, wow, how did you see that?
8
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Yeah, this is happening.
8
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This is like, he s like, really?
8
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You know, and he s just such a light.
8
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He s just such a joy.
8
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And so he just is always reminding me to look for
8
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the best in people.
8
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And I just adore him.
8
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It s why he s a bonus.
8
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You know?
8
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And then Willow.
8
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Oh, she s such a fireball.
8
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I mean, she is like the mirror of the fire of my soul.
8
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When I tell you, she is the mirror of that.
8
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Like I get to see myself in her in so many ways.
8
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What I love most about Willow is that she is to the point, you know what I mean?
8
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She is like, she doesn t have a whole lot of play play.
8
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She s just like, no, no.
8
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She just hits it on the mark where sometimes I can be very flowery, you know, very gentle.
8
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And I also love how she loves me.
8
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She teaches me a lot about love.
8
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She teaches me a lot about, when I talked about being able to join, like she teaches me a lot about how to join her and how to join others in ways that I m not used to.
8
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I know how to join others in ways that I m used to, but me having to learn how to join her in a certain manner, I ve had to come out of my comfort zones and really be like, oh man, I m very deficient here.
8
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And her patience with me with that deficiency.
8
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She s so patient with me.
8
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She s like, it s okay, mom.
8
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You know, sometimes I don t need you to talk to me, mom, just hold me.
8
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I m like, oh, that s all you want me to do?
8
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You just want me, that s all?
8
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I m not used to that.
8
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I don t come from a family where affection, that we don t hug each other and hold each other.
8
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That s not what we did.
8
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But Willow?
9
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Ma, I don t need your advice.
9
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I just want to sit here, hold me while I cry.
9
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And then I have to learn how to, I ve had to learn, she s taught me how to hold tears and really be able to join with those tears and not rebel and, you know, like have them repel because then they bring up my tears.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so she s learned, she s taught me how to love my tears too.
9
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You know, those places within myself that I haven t always been willing to go.
9
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You know, and now I cry all the time, you know, and I call it the thawing because for so long I wasn t allowed, I didn t allow myself to cry, you know.
9
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So she s taught me that.
9
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And then there s Jaden.
9
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Oh man, Jaden, he s just walking joy.
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, he comes in the room and it s just like,
9
SPEAKER_01
You know, he s just walking joy.
9
SPEAKER_01
But he was like that when I carried him.
9
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I was the happiest I had ever been in my life when I was pregnant with Jaden.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I think that had a lot to do with the energy that he carries.
9
SPEAKER_01
He has the capacity to love everything.
9
SPEAKER_01
And that is difficulty, challenging people,
9
SPEAKER_01
challenging situations, he has the capacity to love it all and find the beauty in it.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I m talking about sincerely.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it is like, that s a God-given gift.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s not, you can t teach that.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so he just, I was sitting out, you know, I was just talking to him the other day and I was just like, oh, I was reading this book, Emotionally Immature Parents.
9
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And I was like, Jaden, you gotta read this book.
9
SPEAKER_01
Your mother has been an emotionally immature parent, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
I said, you gotta read this book.
9
SPEAKER_01
And he said, you know what, Ma?
9
SPEAKER_01
He said, things from afar can look a certain way, but when you put a microscope up on something and you look at it close up, he was like, it is such a weird shape.
9
SPEAKER_01
weird, beautiful shapes of things, but you get to see the intricacies of it, and it s so much more.
9
SPEAKER_01
And that s what you are to me.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re like this beautiful, intricate organism that I love so much.
9
SPEAKER_01
Don t ever apologize to me again.
9
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
9
SPEAKER_01
And that s just how his mind works.
9
SPEAKER_01
You know, and he comes over and he hugs me and he kisses me on my forehead.
9
SPEAKER_01
You know what I m saying?
9
SPEAKER_01
And he s like,
9
SPEAKER_01
You gave birth to me.
9
SPEAKER_01
Don t ever apologize to me. 
9
SPEAKER_01
And he s like, and I m not reading that book.
9
SPEAKER_01
I said, I m going to get you the book anyway.
9
SPEAKER_01
You need to read it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m always apologizing to my kids about all kinds of things.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think it s so important for parents to apologize.
9
SPEAKER_01
Say sorry.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve gotten in the habit every little, like if I misunderstand something or if there s like this like little glip, you know what?
9
SPEAKER_01
I didn t quite get that then.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m so sorry.
9
SPEAKER_01
I apologize.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m going to do better next time with that.
9
SPEAKER_01
And thank you for your patience.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think it s important.
9
SPEAKER_01
I wish my father had apologized to me more.
9
SPEAKER_01
My mom apologizes too.
9
SPEAKER_01
I actually learned that from her.
9
SPEAKER_01
She s apologized a lot.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I actually said the same thing to her now that I m thinking about it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Stop apologizing to me.
9
SPEAKER_00
But isn t that, those are the best relationships where someone does something and the other person is like, it s fine.
9
SPEAKER_00
And that s what kind of, it s that relationship where
9
SPEAKER_00
Internally, you re happy you heard it, but you know you didn t need to.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right.
9
SPEAKER_00
But the person still felt the need to say it.
9
SPEAKER_00
And it creates so much clarity.
9
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, when I told Willow you were coming on today, she sent a little note.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh, no!
9
SPEAKER_00
Because...
9
SPEAKER_00
I was talking to her about it, and I was talking to her about the book, and so she sent this little note that I want to read to you, if that s okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, let me get my napkin.
9
SPEAKER_00
So she said, this is from Willow, and Willow, if I don t read it as you would in your amazing voice, then please forgive me.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m also apologizing to you in advance.
9
SPEAKER_00
Mom, I am incomprehensibly proud of you and all of the inner excavation you have done during the writing of your book.
9
SPEAKER_00
There were many times during the process where you would read me sections and deep emotions would come up for us both.
9
SPEAKER_00
Learning from you through learning about you is one of the biggest joys of my life.
9
SPEAKER_00
You never cease to inspire me with how wide you ve opened your heart, not only to the immense joys of life, but also to the deep uncertainties and shadows with equal gratitude and grace.
9
SPEAKER_00
You have shown me true tenderness and true strength come from the same place within, and that is something that I aspire to show others.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for loving me.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m so grateful for you.
9
SPEAKER_01
The guru, that s the little guru right there.
9
SPEAKER_01
There it is.
9
SPEAKER_00
She loves you so much.
9
SPEAKER_00
And they all obviously love you so much.
9
SPEAKER_00
But when I read that and when I was reflecting on it, it was just, and as me and Radhi always talk about this, cause we ve watched you and Willow so many times together.
9
SPEAKER_00
And it has been so inspiring to us to see that connection you both have and the openness you have with your kids and how well they understand you.
9
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, as you were just saying, you always apologizing, but that s what they re seeing.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
They see that because you re so willing to share with them.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t, I don t keep secrets from my kids.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve let them see my deepest flaws.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s important.
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, and not in the way that
9
SPEAKER_01
We have to be careful with that too.
9
SPEAKER_01
But I mean, just as far as like, it s okay to be human, not being afraid to show my humanness.
9
SPEAKER_01
Cause that s the one thing with my mother that I have so much gratitude for, that I could see her as a human being and my relationship with, you know, my mother being an addict and me being able to relate to her as,
9
SPEAKER_01
not just my mother, but as a woman, you know, as a person.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I think that was one aspect that I felt like I really needed to bring into my relationship with my kids for them to see me as a person.
9
SPEAKER_01
We re in this together.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
It comes across when I ve witnessed it.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s, it s the most beautiful thing I could only ever dream that
9
SPEAKER_00
when Radhe and I are able to do that, that, you know, that we- You will.
9
SPEAKER_00
Have what you have.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s really special.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s remarkable to watch in practice.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I mean that, and, you know, the message says it all, but, Chheda, I wanted, you know, I, throughout this book and even in this interview today, I think, I was gonna save this to say it later, but I m gonna say it now.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ve been sharing
9
SPEAKER_00
spirituality with people in different ways since I was 18 years old and
9
SPEAKER_00
I was so young and immature then in my spirituality and I still am today and that will always continue.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I ve just been fortunate to sit at the feet of incredible teachers and mentors.
9
SPEAKER_00
And so any realization I ve had earlier than I should have had it is because of sitting with elders and, you know, sitting with the teachers I ve introduced you to.
9
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And I ve rarely met someone who s as eager for healing as you.
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I don t think I ve met a family that s more, where healing is the top priority.
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And it s such an interesting thing to perceive in someone because you can tell by someone s language and when their eyes light up and their body language changes as to what they are motivated by.
9
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And ever since I met you from the first day we met backstage green room for red table talk series to launch day event, I was getting to host an interview you and Willow.
9
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And I remember you d asked me like, what did you learn as a monk?
9
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And I d said to you, I was giving to you what I did learn as practices, but I wasn t getting to the root of it.
9
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So I was explaining the practices like gratitude and meditation and mindfulness and
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service, and you were kind of just like, oh, that s cool.
9
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And then I d said to you, because I felt a inner voice say that I should, and it was truly guided from within, and I said to you, I learned how to love God.
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And that was potentially the first time I d even said that in that way to someone.
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And you just like, your whole body language
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and everything just changed, and everyone else was late, so we were just talking, and you were like, I wanna learn how to love God too, and you d obviously already been on that journey for decades, and you talk about it in the book, where you started with the ethical society.
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That had been a journey that had been a part of your journey forever, but it was so interesting to me to meet someone, and an entire family, who is more focused on healing and growth,
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and God in their own way, in your own language, in your own ways, than anything else.
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We ve never had a conversation that steers too far away from any of those things.
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And we have fun and we have a good time and everything.
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And the reason I raised that is because I also saw that
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When you were talking about Oscar s night in the book, you referred to it as the holy slap and the holy joke.
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And you ve always looked at everything through the lens of, how is this bringing me closer to the divine?
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I remember one conversation we had about the feminine divine.
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and I ll never forget it because at this point we d been doing, we d been talking twice a week for like a year and a half or something.
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And we were talking about a specific aspect of the divine feminine, which is often left out or forgotten or hidden.
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I d never seen anyone respond in a way so,
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sincerely and genuinely to a vision of God as you did, and you said with tears in your eyes, you re like, I ve been looking for this God for 25 years.
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And I remember just going, I could just see the genuineness and the sincerity in your eyes, and I was just like, wow, I hope I can love like that one day.
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That s actually what I felt, as in it was so inspiring.
10
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And I know that I ve got closer to divinity through our work, and that s because of your seeking.
10
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And you ve pulled me closer to the divine through your seeking, which you ve given me the greatest gift, like for years and years and years, ever since I ve known you.
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And it s your ability to look for that.
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And so I wanted to talk to you about, you know, I think when
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when it all went down on Oscars night, and you talk about this in the book, and so I wanna leave everyone to read about it in full, but the perception was that you were so offended that you d kind of urge this action, which is bizarre in and of itself for so many reasons that you lay out in the book.
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But I wanna hear from you, what were you actually hurt by about the condition that you were going through?
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And in that gap between what we saw and what we didn t get to see, which everyone had their own theory on, what was actually your thought space or where were you?
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Let me start with, that was a really layered moment.
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Let me start with also that,
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there was so much that people didn t know in regards to what was happening with Will and I at that time.
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And I will leave for people to get the book.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Because there s so much history.
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And you go into it.
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Present, yeah.
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You break it down.
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I break it down.
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Hence why I did not.
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Exactly, it s so much history that I think would give people a lot more context to understand that moment.
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Let me also say that I know that was a difficult moment to watch because of history that Chris and I had in regards to the 2016 Oscar so white.
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And I let people read to get up to speed on that.
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But when I first saw Chris  name come on stage, come up as one of the presenters, I said, oh boy.
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I looked at Will, and I was like, he s not going to be able to help himself.
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This is going to be something.
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I was like, I knew.
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I already knew.
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And I was like, OK.
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So Will had been going back and forth backstage all night.
10
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So when Chris said what he said,
10
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I looked to Will as if to say, see, I knew it, right?
10
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And then I was like, oh boy, that s not cool to talk about a medical condition that people, there s nothing you can, it s not something that can be cured, right?
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And that
10
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how many stories I had heard of people, you know, young people committing suicide, and the shame, and just how many people suffer, and you don t even know.
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Like, once I had the condition and I saw how many people around me had it, I was like, all these years I didn t know, and people expressed the shame, the level of shame they had around it.
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I m gonna be okay.
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As far as my condition, and as you can see, my hair is growing back.
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That s what it does.
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It ll grow, it ll fall out, it ll grow back again.
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pieces of my eyebrows would fall out, grow back.
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You know, I m having a good moment right now.
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My alopecia is not as extreme as most people who are dealing with that condition.
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And I just felt like that s not okay.
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So I wasn t upset about me.
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And I don t remember actually rolling my eyes.
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I think what people saw was me looking at Will going, I told you, I knew he was going to do that.
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And oh boy, here we go again.
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Yeah, that was kind of the reaction.
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Yeah, you know, oh, here we go.
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But I wasn t upset about me.
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I really wasn t.
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It wasn t about me.
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It was just all the stories I had heard and that I continue to hear about people who have suffered from this condition.
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And obviously you didn t want what happened to happen.
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Like I think that s just clarifying.
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I know that.
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I m just clarifying it.
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Of course.
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It wasn t like I looked at Will and said, you know, you know.
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But, and that s the kind of, you know, those are the kind of moments of context that I lost sometimes.
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Listen, there was an aspect of that, that I was as shocked as anyone because Will and I hadn t been referring to each other as husband and wife since 2016.
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I was like, wife?
10
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Me?
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That s right.
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Yeah.
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I m okay.
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That s right.
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I am your wife.
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And that kicked in.
10
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I m like, yep, here we are.
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In that moment that that did happen, I was like, we came together, we re leaving together.
10
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You know, that part of me that put everything else aside and was like, this is going to be something.
10
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I need to make sure Will s okay.
10
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We re going to get through this.
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I had no idea that that was, none whatsoever.
10
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And I came as family.
10
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I actually didn t go to the Oscars as Will s wife.
10
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And I know for people that s weird, but what was going on behind the scenes, Will and I had been, like, we weren t living as husband and wife since 2016.
10
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I was happy he asked me to go.
10
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I was happy he wanted to share that moment with me still.
10
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And I was going to be by his side.
10
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And I think also people weren t really aware of the journey that had taken place after emancipation, as far as Will s concerned.
10
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It was a really difficult movie.
10
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And afterwards, he decided to get into therapeutic settings and he asked me to join him.
10
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because a lot of stuff was coming up.
10
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A lot of stuff from his past, childhood stuff.
10
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I think people didn t understand that there was a history there between he and Chris as well.
10
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So there was a lot of context that people just didn t have.
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And I m going to tell you something else.
10
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I understand why people thought it was me.
10
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I understand why people blame me.
10
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I don t think it s right, but I understand, considering the narratives that were out there that I was part of.
10
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I have to take responsibility for that.
10
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And I talk about that in the book, you know, me being the adulterous wife that had, you know, pushed Will to his limit.
10
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I get it.
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So I couldn t even take any of it personally.
10
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And I had to put myself in the shoes of the audience and go, if I was looking at this, what would I say?
10
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I probably would have said the same thing.
10
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And then that made me really look at like, oh man, like culturally, we re always blaming women.
10
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Like I had to really go deep into that.
10
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Why do we do that?
10
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You know, that men of power that have so much of their oneness in their life, but when something bad happens, it s a woman s fault.
10
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You know what I mean?
10
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It s so interesting.
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You know, and I had, I really started to examine that, but more so just looking at that narrative and taking responsibility.
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And at the same time, there was love and compassion for Chris.
10
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There was that.
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Oh yeah.
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You know, I talk about that in the book.
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I ve worked with Chris.
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I know Chris.
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Am I always a fan of Chris s stage work?
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No, but Chris and
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as a person.
11
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He s a sweet guy.
11
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There was a moment when Chris came down to the end of the stage.
11
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And you have to understand, I m in deep confusion.
11
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I don t know what s going on.
11
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Because of me understanding the context of Will and I behind the scenes, what just happened on the stage.
11
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I m worried about Will.
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I ve never
11
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seen that from him.
11
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I don t know what s going on.
11
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But Chris comes to the end of the stage, and he looks at me deeply, sincerely, and he says, Jada, I meant no harm.
11
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And it was so sincere in his eyes.
11
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I m like, that s the Chris I know.
11
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That s the Chris I ve experienced.
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That s the Chris that a lot of people don t get to see because people just see Chris on stage doing what Chris does.
11
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But I m glad I had that moment because with everything else that transpired afterwards, you know, his Netflix, certain comments and all of that, I could hold on to that sincere moment
11
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So when we talk about looking past personality, when somebody has had that opportunity to show you their heart, to show you their spirit, that s the truth, not all the other stuff that hurt, misunderstanding, confusion might bring up.
11
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So were my feelings hurt when I heard what was happening as far as the Netflix?
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Of course, my feelings were hurt, but I didn t take it personally.
11
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Because I can see his eyes right now as I m talking to you.
11
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And that s the truth of Chris s spirit.
11
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Jada meant no harm.
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I talk about it in the book.
11
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It s like, you gotta have grace.
11
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When we re hurt, I m not saying that I agree with how it was handled.
11
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I don t agree with it.
11
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But I understand.
11
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And so my hope is that there will be such a beautiful opportunity for healing.
11
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And my hope is that that will occur as time.
11
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Everything needs time.
11
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You have two beautiful men who have hurts,
11
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and who have hurt one another.
11
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But they re both beautiful men.
11
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And as I said before, my hope is that these two very capable, beautiful men at some time figure out how to resolve
11
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this whole thing of the present and of the past, you know, because life is about healing, man.
11
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It s like life s too short.
11
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And, you know, sometimes conflicts can really amplify love.
11
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They really can.
11
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I know it has for me.
11
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And that s why I called that chapter The Holy Slap, The Holy Joke, The Holy Slap and The Holy Lessons, because
11
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through all of this conflict that I ve been in the midst of, all this misunderstanding that I ve been in the midst of, it s helped amplify love within my heart.
11
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It s made my heart more elastic.
11
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Hate, and I really have been able to understand how hate has a ceiling.
11
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You know, hate, aggression, you know, it has a ceiling, whereas love is, oh.
11
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Wow.
11
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But it takes so much courage, and it s so easy to go into aggression.
11
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It s so easy to go into, you know, hateful feelings.
11
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It s easy.
11
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And I can t blame anybody for doing it, and I have no judgment, because guess what?
11
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Been there, done that.
11
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You know, Jada, when you started today, you said that this is your journey from being unlovable to trying to find love again.
11
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And it s really the true story of all of our lives.
11
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We re all on that journey.
11
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being unlovable, thinking that if someone loves us, we ll be fine.
11
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Then thinking that if we get or achieve this, we ll be fine.
11
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Then thinking if I love this person perfectly, then I ll be fine.
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And it s like, we keep filling in the sentence between unlovable to lovable with so many versions.
11
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And I think what this book,
11
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This memoir does so beautifully, honestly, is you show us every version that you tried to fit in that gap.
11
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Every version.
11
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Every version that you tried to fit in that gap.
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You re just showing us the reality of what that comes with, like the pain that comes with trying to fit everything into that gap.
11
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And I appreciate you for doing that because it s hard to not turn every story into a fairytale ending or a perfect ending.
11
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And there isn t that here.
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And I think that that s what truly makes it relatable.
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It s what truly makes it applicable wherever we are on our journeys on that spectrum and anyone else s.
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And it s why I said that I really hope that anyone who s on that journey themselves will pick this book up and
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be able to notice which gap they re trying to fill it with.
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Yeah.
11
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And come back in if that sounds, if that feels right, if that resonates.
11
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That s really right.
11
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Guess what, Mango?
11
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What s that, Will?
11
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So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
11
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I know, that s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
11
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It s about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it s called Earthquake House.
11
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Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
11
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Why don t we just tell people about our show instead?
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that s a better idea.
11
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So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world s most important questions.
11
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Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
11
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is William Shatner s best acting work in Esperanto.
11
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Also, what happened to Esperanto?
11
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Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
11
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How do dollar stores stay in business?
11
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And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
11
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There absolutely is.
11
SPEAKER_02
And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
11
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But if you love mind blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part Time Genius.
11
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Listen to Part Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
11
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It s like, cause you re right.
11
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It s like all these, it s like, okay, that didn t work.
11
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Let me go over here.
11
SPEAKER_03
Let me try this.
11
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And then it just, nope.
11
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You got to, you got to heal you.
11
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and you got to really get with a power higher than yourself.
11
SPEAKER_03
And I want to thank you for really being so helpful in so many ways, Jay, in regards to, you talk about, I mean, we ve been on such a beautiful journey together in that way of just
11
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learning and deepening our relationship with God individually, together.
11
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I so appreciate you for that.
11
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I mean, you have been so instrumental in that way.
11
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I genuinely can t take any credit.
11
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Like I m not even, I m not even, and that s not me being humble or modest.
11
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It s, it s me just saying that in the same way as you feel people came into your life to, you know, accelerate that journey and reconnect you.
11
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Like you did the same for me and Radhi.
11
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Like,
11
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in a, in a physical way, you, all of you have given us so much family.
11
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We ve celebrated so many Thanksgivings.
11
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We ve had you over for Sangha every, you know, for days and days and weeks and months and years.
11
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And, you know, you ve given us so much and I, I don t, I think that s what
11
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I think this book does.
11
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I think that s what we ll do for our friendships is that I got the opportunity to build a friendship with you that was based on nothing else, but healing growth and the divine.
11
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And that kind of relationship just has a different energy.
11
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It s really special when there s nothing else.
11
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There s nothing else that.
11
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Yeah.
11
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would have made our paths cross.
11
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We don t work together.
11
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We don t have, we don t do business together.
11
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We don t have the same friends, like, you know, but, but, but this, I m so grateful to watch someone do the hardest work and I m going, yeah, I need to do it too.
11
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And I admire it because I see it from that perspective with you.
11
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And I always have that.
11
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you re not trying to take the easy way out.
11
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You re not, you re not just looking to fix it with a bandaid.
11
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You re not just hoping it will go away.
11
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You re like, no, I m going to sit there with it.
11
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That is just, I just, that is such an uncomfortable place naturally for 99% of people.
11
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I m in awe of you because of it.
12
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And I always will be.
12
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And I m just, I m so happy that you decided to put it into writing because this isn t about clarifying.
12
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It isn t about people getting a sense of what really happened.
12
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That s not what it s about.
12
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It s about how can we sit through that discomfort that we re going through in our life and choose healing and growth even when it s the hardest thing and the farthest thing away from us.
12
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Listen, if things get cleared up from reading this book, great.
12
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But that s not the purpose.
12
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Because I actually don t think you can.
12
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You can t.
12
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Yeah, you can t.
12
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It ll just be more stirring up whatever other things.
12
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Right.
12
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And it s really which is why it s even more important to really be able to have a strong sense of self.
12
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Right.
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And not to be looking for external things.
12
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To be to substitute
12
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what you have to have inside in order to know your place in this world.
12
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This place is crazy.
12
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And to try to make the material space, the material world align in a way for your comfort, it can t start there.
12
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It has to start within yourself, that how you see
12
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and what you attract to you is in alignment with what is happening here, right?
12
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But looking for the world to buoy you up or accept you in a certain manner, nah.
12
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Like I said before, this can just give some little breadcrumbs to help people get to a sense of self-worth that gives them that comfort no matter what is happening.
12
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If you ve brought freaking chocolate chip cookies with peanuts in them,
12
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to the school fair, even though kids might have allergies and the school done wrote you a letter and said, don t bring products with peanuts.
12
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And you made them with love.
12
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And now the mom group is on your neck.
12
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You can be okay.
12
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You can be okay with your victories and you can be okay with the inevitable challenges that life is going to deliver.
12
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It s okay either way.
12
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You re okay, you re worthy, you re lovable, peanuts and all.
12
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So Jada, one of the things that you mentioned was that you went to the Oscars as family, but not as a wife.
12
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And I wanted to ask you, how do you define the status of your relationship now?
12
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And what is it like?
12
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You know, right now, of course we ve had, it s been an intense two years and we ve really been
12
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doing some deep healing together.
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And that s why I was saying before the idea of how just really disruptive situations can amplify love in a certain manner, because it kind of forces you to have to dive a little deeper.
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That s what we ve been doing.
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We ve just been growing together.
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See what happens then.
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See what grows from there.
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You know, but like I said in the book, it s like, we have this beautiful friendship and
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We really look at our marriage as being the cornerstone of family.
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We re both kind of coming up with different definitions of what marriage means for us.
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We re still figuring all of that out.
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Yeah.
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But the beautiful part is that there s been some really deep healing going on.
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Yeah.
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I mean, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, that s what it s about.
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Marriage is so much about growth, like really learning how to grow emotionally, like emotional maturity, spiritual maturity.
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And there s this spiritual bond there.
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I mean, we ve tried our best to get away from each other.
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I mean, I mean, our best and
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We just don t want to.
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So we are defining it the way that works for us.
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And I think getting comfortable with not being concerned about
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what anybody else thinks about it.
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We have this life partnership and every day we re trying to figure out what that means.
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You ve both talked about how you feel like you re a mirror for each other.
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Yeah.
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And when I ve spoken to Will as well, it s like, he feels like you re the person who knows him to his core.
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Absolutely.
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He knows you to your core.
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Like, you know, everything that potentially there is to know about each other and you re obviously still learning.
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Yeah.
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What s really interesting about that is some people would say, well, why not just get divorced?
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Yeah.
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Everybody s always like, why don t you just get divorced?
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And it s like, that s like quitting.
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I don t think there s any person that could embrace the best and the worst of me and be able, be willing to hold space in the way that will hold space for me and the way that I hold space for him.
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And I know that most people probably go into their relationship
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as like, you are here to please me.
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And yeah, our relationship isn t quite that.
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You know, it s like, it s more about there s no greater mirror I could have than Will.
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He doesn t, I can t, I can t get around myself.
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Just like he can t get around himself with me.
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And I think that that s just been
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what this has been all about.
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Like it s been a deep clearing, like really having to look at yourself in ways in that mirror that, sure, we talk about this all the time.
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Would it be easier to go and find somebody else and have a more pleasing, more comfortable relationship?
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Maybe, but would that get me to the person?
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that I really want to be.
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I don t think so.
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And I m not saying that everybody s relationship is supposed to be that.
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I m not here to say that.
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I m just saying that that s what my relationship is.
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That s something I desire to get to a deeper part, a more spiritually sound, emotionally sound, and really understand love
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unconditionally.
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And the thing that I ve learned about unconditional love, you can t really understand what unconditional love in ideal circumstances to really get to what it is to love.
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yourself and someone else completely with all that s divine, all that s human, all that s perfect, and all that is deeply flawed, and have full acceptance for it all.
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I tell you, this is, you know, marriage is not for the faint at heart.
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It s just not.
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And it is definitely, I believe, I believe,
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You know, different people get married for different reasons.
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So I m not trying to say why anybody else should be married.
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But for me, the holy path of getting to a divine aspect of myself in partnership with Will.
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And it seems like Will wants the same for himself.
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And it s taken us, you know, I mean, we got together at what?
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I was 23.
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Okay.
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23 when I first decided to
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commit myself to Willard Carroll Smith.
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Lord Jesus.
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So young.
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So young.
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We were babies, babies trying to figure this out.
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And you know what s interesting about young relationships?
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You create these young patterns that get so, like these really young, immature patterns in yourself and how you relate
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to your partner, and then you create these dynamics between one another, that it takes a while to really be willing to look at that stuff and dissolve it and let it go and mature and grow.
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It takes some real self-inventory, patience, courage.
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Right?
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Because you re breaking down everything, all your romantic ideas, everything you thought, you know, relationship or marriage, all your romantic fantasies.
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You know, just, you know, blow up in flames.
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But it s really been freeing.
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It s really been freeing to see what s more true.
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Right?
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I m not saying that I know the truth yet.
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I just feel like I m seeing more of what s true, you know, as regards to what love and partnership is about.
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because I was definitely one of those people that s like, you re here to make me happy.
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And when you don t do it, that s a problem.
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And that s a normal setup.
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That s how we believe relationships are.
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And I ve talked about it before, and I put it forward in my book, this idea that we think pleasure is the ultimate gift of a relationship, but really purification is.
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And that s a really tough,
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idea for anyone, including me, I haven t perfected that idea, for me to wrap my head around.
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And I can honestly say that I love Radhi and you ve seen us both together and everything, but the greatest gift Radhi gives me is a mirror and a purification of
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Radhi can call out my ego better than anyone or anything.
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And I know it s coming from a good place.
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Radhi can show me my flaws in the nicest, most supportive way possible and can receive it back from me.
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And then I feel like because of her, I m
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trying to be better, getting better, not for her.
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That s right.
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For myself, it s almost like the person that you live with knows you so deeply, or the person that has seen you in all circumstances, in all situations, knows you the deepest.
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I would say, Radhi knows whether I woke up and meditated in the morning.
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Yeah.
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Like, Radhi knows whether I got angry or frustrated at night after a phone call.
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Like, Radhi knows that.
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And if I use that to my advantage of,
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am I becoming, am I growing?
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But it s such a hard concept for people to understand because it s so counterintuitive to the pleasure-seeking mind that we ve been conditioned to chase.
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And again, I m not saying we shouldn t have pleasure in relationships.
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That s not the point I m making.
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I m just saying that there s more to it.
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There s another level.
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There s definitely more to it.
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And I think we ve talked about this before, you and I, as far as people believing that
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Romantic love is the highest form.
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Now, I believe that romantic love is an aspect
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right, of a higher form.
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But I don t believe that romantic love itself is the highest form, right?
13
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I believe within the highest form, you can have romantic love, but that romantic love is not of the highest, right?
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And that s all I ve been examining and exploring with Will.
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and really trying to understand the power of unconditional love, friendship.
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Like there s something about friendship, familial love, that is beautiful.
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But when two people can have an agreement around divine love,
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like love of a source greater than yourself that you want to be connected to.
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And then you decide that your relationship is going to be connected to that same source.
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Oh boy, now we re on to something.
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Now we re on to something.
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But to think that romantic love
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can hold all of the difficulties and challenges alone.
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And I think that s why so many of us get into these power struggles and why there s so many divorces and why that, you know, just all of this strife in relationships.
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You brought up something that was really important.
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And it s the idea of Roddy when she can kind of pull your coattails with love.
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And I think that s, it takes a lot of work to figure that out.
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Like to not be offended when someone shows up imperfectly.
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And that, those are those kinds of pieces within relationship.
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Like we feel like people are supposed to come ready-made.
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You walk down the aisle and it s like,
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He knows how to love me.
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I know how to love him.
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And not making room for that space of growth that is inevitable.
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People are going to mess up.
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People are going to do stupid stuff.
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People are going to say stupid stuff.
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Now, when it comes to abuse and all of that, that s a different story, right?
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But people who are willing,
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to learn how to love each other.
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Because I really do think that s what committed relationships about, marriage or not.
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I m committed to learning how to love myself, learning how to love you, right?
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And then learning how to cultivate this relationship that we have with that essence, with those components.
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Then that s a beautiful thing.
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That s what I believe the holy path of relating is all about.
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And not everybody wants that.
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Yeah, totally.
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You know, some people really just want the romantic version of it and that s okay too.
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Absolutely.
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That s okay too, you know.
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But for me, definitely on that path of looking for something
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deeper within myself, mostly.
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How did you let go of that desire for romantic love, but then hold on to the friendship?
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Because I feel like that s a journey that is so hard, whether someone stays married or gets divorced or like, like you both are, you described yourself as best friends.
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How did you hold on to friendship
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being able to let go of the mirage that you had earlier, or even not even the mirage, the reality of what you had earlier, as you talk about in the book, you know, the chemistry, the spark.
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I think so many of us are trying to hold on to that, but you ve let go of that.
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And then you re saying, but we ve held onto the friendship, the mirror, the work, the growth.
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That sounds like the hard way through it.
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I think it s how people show up.
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And people don t always show up perfect, clearly.
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But one thing about Will and I, we re just not willing to give up.
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It s like, I m lucky that we just want to have each other in one another s life, right?
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You have moments of disharmony, but if you know that you re not willing
13
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to not have that person in your life, you know you got to put forth the effort and you got to put forth the work to transform whatever s not working.
13
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So we always make the decision to take that one step closer to diving more deeply, to learning how to love.
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And most of the time, it has more to do with self-inventory, having to go in the corner and look at oneself and then come back and go, I was tripping.
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Whether it s, I m sorry, or I had a misunderstanding.
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Can we look at this now together?
13
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Because now I ve looked at it in my corner alone and I ve seen my part.
13
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And I want to talk to you first about my part.
13
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A, B, C, and D, right?
13
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And then inevitably, usually your partner will go, well, you know, I could have done such and such and such.
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And so when you have an agreement that s really unspoken of like, I want you in my life.
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And I want to have good times with you.
13
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And I love you.
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then that s the energy that nurtures and keeps one willing to just keep working at it.
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So there s that deep love.
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And the great thing is that Will s got a great sense of humor.
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You know what I mean?
13
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He s got a really good sense of humor.
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So he has a way of being able to help me get out of my funk.
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But I m kind of like, you talk about this a lot with Roddy, where I kind of have to take my time.
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Like I m not always ready to talk right away.
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I need to like sit, I need to be with myself.
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I need to kind of like work through my thoughts and all of that.
13
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Where Will is always ready to talk.
13
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I like to go deep.
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He likes to get funny.
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The great thing about him, he can go deep.
13
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Totally, absolutely.
14
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And there are times that I really like to play and have fun.
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So we re like these energetic fields.
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I m earth and he s sky.
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We are your typical yin and yang.
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There s this great chemistry there between us that just works.
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But when it doesn t work, oh man.
14
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You know what I mean?
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Those moments where it s just like, ah.
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But I think that s just inevitable in every relationship, you know?
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But it just doesn t look traditional.
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I think that s the point.
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That s the part where it s like, it just doesn t look traditional.
14
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It works because there s a trust, there s commitment, there s understanding.
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And at the same time, it doesn t look how you think it would look.
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It doesn t look traditional.
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I don t know.
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I m going to be honest with you.
14
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There are aspects of traditional relating that absolutely work.
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But I think in this day and age, I don t know too many marriages that are traditional.
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I really don t.
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Everybody is trying to figure it out, right?
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And I think everybody s so scared to talk about
14
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all of the different ways that they re trying to figure it out.
14
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I know so many people who are like married, but not living together, married, but have decided to have other partners.
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I know so many people and have for a long time that are trying marriage in so many different forms.
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And my whole thing is, figure it out for you.
14
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Marriage is not a cookie-cut-out formula.
14
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Besides, I do think that there s some staples.
14
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You know, love.
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But even that, let me take that out for a second.
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There s some people who are married strictly for business purposes.
14
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I ve seen that too.
14
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As long as there s agreement between two people and how they decide they want to be together, stay out of it.
14
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It has nothing to do... I tell people all the time, don t look at my marriage as being contagious.
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Whatever I m doing doesn t mean you got to be doing that.
14
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You gotta be doing the thing that works for you.
14
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And I feel like every partnership, two people have the right to figure that out for them.
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And it s so different in norms and different cultures and different backgrounds.
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I mean, like for me and Radhi, we spend a lot of time apart because she likes to be back with her family in London and I travel for work.
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And so we discovered and agreed very early on in our relationship that when I work, she would often visit her family back in London and she loves it.
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And she wants to be with her mom and dad and her niece and nephew and her sister and brother-in-law and everyone.
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And I love my purpose and I want to be traveling.
14
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I want to be working.
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I want to be moving.
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And I remember so many times in our relationship, people would be like, is everything okay?
14
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And then we d go back to London, people would be like, why is your wife not with you?
14
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Or people were like, why is Jane not with you?
14
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And everyone starts thinking,
14
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that there may be something going on.
14
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And it s actually like, well, no, this was our agreement.
14
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This is something we ve sat and talked about and figured things out.
14
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And actually we love distance because we get excited to see each other again.
14
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It s refreshing.
14
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It works for us.
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And again, it may not work for anyone else.
14
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Someone may say, I need my partner by my side every day.
14
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Fair enough.
14
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And someone may say, I want to travel more than you do or less, but
14
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We just found that having honest conversations between us and knowing why we were making certain decisions, even though they were abnormal to our community, the community that we grew up in, where the way we live is very abnormal, even though it s just about time apart,
14
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The point was we had an agreement that worked for us.
14
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And I think getting to know you both, I can honestly say that I feel like you guys are both always honest and communicative with each other on what your agreements are.
14
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Absolutely.
14
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And that s what we have been discussing today as well, that, you know, there s always been that.
14
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that openness to do that?
14
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Oh yeah, well, I talk about it a lot in the book.
14
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Absolutely.
14
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And I think that a lot of people had a lot of misunderstanding as we talked about earlier, I believe, in regards to open relationship and being able to be with whoever you want.
14
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No, that s not what was happening.
14
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And I think a lot of times that people just didn t know that we had agreed to not be together.
14
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as we were trying to figure out, are we going to be separated?
14
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Are we going to be divorced?
14
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Then we would reconcile and then we would break up again.
14
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And it s all this back and forth between us that we didn t share with the world a lot, you know?
14
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And I think now people are just going to have to be okay with our marriage is not traditional in the sense of here we are,
14
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Married, but not.
14
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You know what I mean?
14
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And, you know, as I m on my path and Will s figuring his thing out, we ve decided to hold space for each other.
14
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And as we re trying to figure out who we are, Will s lived a lot of his life for other people.
14
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I ve definitely lived my life a lot for other people.
14
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Really having this time for me, I need this.
14
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What I ve been able to discover about myself in the last five years, six years, I think now, I ve needed this time to really concentrate on me and really developing, like,
14
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relationship with myself.
14
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And I feel like the better relationship I have with myself, the better relationship I have with everyone else in my life, including Will.
14
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And so I talk about that a lot in the book, you know, just a lot of the misunderstandings that have occurred, rightfully so, because it s been a lot of mixed messaging.
14
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And then people are like, well, you know, you guys have been on the red carpet, you know, and all of that.
14
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We see you.
14
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We never knew there was a breakup.
14
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You weren t supposed to.
14
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That was between us.
14
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And at the end of the day,
14
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We re always family, no matter what.
14
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So I think that the way we are deciding to be in a union, people are just going to have to get with that it s probably not going to look like
14
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what someone else is doing.
14
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And that s just the truth of the matter, you know, and we re good with that.
14
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I can definitely say that whatever relationship anyone is in, that we all get to a point in our relationships, romantic or otherwise,
14
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where growing together becomes the greatest priority.
14
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It doesn t matter how we got there.
14
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I think that is the key.
14
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I was saying to that when I was writing my book, Eight Rules of Love, it was like,
14
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The journey I went on through writing it got me to that point of recognizing that yes, the goal of every relationship in my life is simply to teach me something I have been unwilling to learn.
14
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And the people that I m closest to.
14
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Yeah, the people that I m closest to are the only ones that can push me or pull me to seeing that.
14
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Whether it s your mom, whether it s your dad, whether it s your sister, brother, partner, whatever it may be.
14
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For me, I also discovered through the writing of the book that the greatest love story, and I really, really believed this when I was writing it, I was like, the greatest love stories in the world are actually not romantic.
14
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The greatest love stories in the world are generally humans sacrificing themselves in the service of others.
14
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Like you see people take on great sacrifice to help people that they may not even meet.
14
SPEAKER_00
Or you see people like taking on a mission or a movement that,
14
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positively affects so many people that they were never even connected to.
14
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Those are the greatest acts of love, or the act of love that a parent has for their child that they extend themselves and express in their unconditionality.
14
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You don t really see romantic love being unconditional, generally.
14
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It s interesting that trying to practice and understand what unconditional love is and figuring it out, which we all are, including me.
14
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But that journey was really powerful for me to recognize that
14
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the more unwilling I become and the more I hide from the lessons that I m meant to learn, the harder it gets and the harder the lesson gets and the test gets and it just gets bigger and worse.
14
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It gets bigger.
14
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And you know, the truth of the matter is, it s like, I m always going to be by Will s side.
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You know, when I think about like, if something ever happened to him, it s like, I m going to be right there.
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If he needs me, I m going to be right there, always.
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That s just an unbreakable fact.
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That s the bond we have.
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You know, we ve tried to break it in every
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which way you can think of.
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We don t want to be in this lifetime without one another.
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It s just not going to happen.
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So we re trying to figure out what that looks like for us.
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And there s something really powerful about that.
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I got to be honest, as difficult as it s been, as there s been times that I ve hated that fact, having somebody that forces me to have to raise my consciousness, evolve my understanding of love, to deal with the fact of that bond, that s a God-given gift because
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Me and God got to get with that.
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God has to be my mentor on how to love, will, and myself, and care for the relationship that we have through the eyes of the Great Supreme, not the way Jada wants it.
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And so that has been a beautiful surrender, that I ve really have had to surrender, because I really feel like it s by the decree
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God was like, oh no, in this lifetime, that s your person, like it or not, I don t care.
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So it set me up to have to break certain ideas of my own personality and my own ego and really surrender to what the great supreme wants to teach me about love.
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and about patience and about care, kindness, consideration, forgiveness of myself, forgiveness of others, it s deep.
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And I m so grateful.
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It s been a painful journey, no doubt.
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But the gifts that I get on the other side of that discomfort,
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And when I get on the other side of the discomfort, I go, I get it.
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I could not have gotten that gift or that understanding without that trial you gave me.
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I just ask God these days, can you make it a little easier?
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I think I m getting the groove of things, you know what I mean?
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I m just like, come on, you know?
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But I ve also realized too that I m getting to the point
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that when things, tumultuous things come about, I smile and I go, okay, you got a great one for me on the other side of this bad boy.
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You know what I mean?
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You just start to realize it s never failed in that way.
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I remember asking Swami, I said, do you think I should get divorced?
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Wow, I didn t know you asked him that.
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I sure did.
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I asked Swami, and he said, you know, Jada, people take their vows very lightly these days.
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And he said something to the effect that
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you know, when we stay committed to the vows that we make, we find what we need.
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And I was like, okay.
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And I just stayed on track.
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I was just like, all right, let me, let me just keep digging.
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Let me keep going.
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And he, you know, he s right for my journey.
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Can t say for anybody else, for my journey.
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Because he said, oh, this is what he said.
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He said, people end up as friends in the long run.
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And they re holding hands, walking each other home.
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And that s how I feel.
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I feel like Will and I are walking each other home as life partners.
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Well Jade, I want to share one last thing with you if I can.
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So earlier I had a letter for you from Willow.
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Okay.
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And I also have a letter from Will.
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I may need your help with, you may have to reenact some words because I feel like you ll be able to channel Will better than me.
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I will not try and impersonate him because it won t go well.
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But this was for you, Jada.
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I think it was when Will found out that you re coming on the show and I was happy that he was able to send this to me and so I could share it with you and I ll just read it and let s do it in his words.
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So you ll have to explain this one for us.
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I know, but I want the audience to know.
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So he said, congrats, dink.
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Okay, so let me just tell you what dink is.
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Yeah, let me tell you what dink means.
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Oh, he s so crazy.
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So when we play golf, he s my favorite person to play golf with.
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So when we play golf, when I hit my driver, it goes dink.
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And so that s why he calls me dink.
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Who s better at golf?
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He s definitely better, but I m getting to a point where I can, you know, I can challenge him in a good way on a couple of holes for sure.
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All right.
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Okay.
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Congrats, Dink.
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I just turned the final page of Worthy and damn, I m going to get you to do the damn.
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How would he say it?
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Damn.
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I just turned the final page of Worthy and damn, it is amazing to realize that despite having lived most of my life by your side, I still found myself shocked and stunned and caught off guard, laughing, then inspired, then heartbroken.
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I was all over the place.
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It s one thing to hear anecdotes at a family barbecue, but it was truly overwhelming to take in your story, potently condensed in this way.
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You are one of one, a rare blend of power and delicate sensitivity.
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I know it wasn t easy to excavate the depths in that way.
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I applaud and honor you.
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If I had read this book 30 years ago, I definitely would have hugged you more.
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I ll start now.
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Welcome to the Authors Club.
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I love you endlessly.
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Now go get some Merlot and take a rest.
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He know I can t have no Merlot.
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That s beautiful.
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And that s why I can t divorce that joker.
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Yeah.
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There s one line that really hit me and I want to hear obviously how you felt, but he said, if I had read this book 30 years ago, I definitely would have hugged you more.
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I ll start now.
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How did it feel listening to parts of that?
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You know, one of the things I talk about in the book a lot,
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is perspective.
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When we got married, Will had to be 28, 29.
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We had such different needs.
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No right or wrong.
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You know, Will was very driven.
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But I got married because I was pregnant and I wanted a family.
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And I must say, that was the one thing
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We both wanted to create a family we never had, but what we thought took having a healthy family, Will believed, man, as long as I get out here,
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make money, get the biggest house, make sure you guys don t need anything.
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That s how you have a great family.
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And my thing was like, no, but love and, you know, me and you, we got to da, da, da, da.
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You know, everything was centered around feelings, love, da, da, da, da.
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We just couldn t find agreement because we thought we had two different goals around what it took.
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And so
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To hear him say that he would have hugged me more is me hearing him say
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he would have taken a bit more time to listen and understand.
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And that doesn t mean that he would have to be off his path, but just to take a little bit more time to listen and understand.
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And I think when we were young, because I was the same way.
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I mean, when we were young, you just think your way is the only way.
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And I think that where Will and I are getting to now is understanding that our ways, my way is just one way.
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His way is just one way.
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And then how do we listen to each other more to blend those ways?
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I was very careful in not going into romanticized regret after hearing that line.
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I wish I could have hugged you more, but I will do so now, right?
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I was like, no, no, no.
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You re not going to go into romanticized regret.
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Because what I know as a fact is that every step, everything,
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that has transpired between us has been absolutely perfect.
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All the beauty and all the ugly to get us to a place that we re coming to, you know?
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And you could go, oh, I wish that, you know, I had known this when I was younger.
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That s the whole point of youth, you don t know.
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You know what I mean?
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And then to really just to be able to embrace like this time in my life and in his life and coming into newfound wisdom and enjoy that.
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But I m so glad that getting closer to that blend between us.
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And that s what I m saying.
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It s like, who else am I going to grow with like that and be able to have those
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that deep, cherished moment of like, when you can look back at where you were 30 years ago and where we ve traveled to get to this moment right here, right now, at this beautiful family.
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Without him, I wouldn t have had Jaden, Willow, Trey.
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Oh my gosh.
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There are no greater treasures than those three.
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And then all of the magnificent experiences he and I have had together, the great ones and the not so great ones, you know?
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But they re ours, part of our tapestry.
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One thing I talk about in the book, going to see Ruby Dee when I needed some marital advice.
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And she told me, laugh now because you re going to laugh later.
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And it s so true.
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I didn t know what she was talking about then.
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But she d been married at that time for 50 some years.
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Ossie was gone.
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Ossie Davis had passed on, you know?
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And one of the things she said to me, I said, what s one of your biggest regrets?
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And she said, I wished I had laughed with him more.
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And that never leaves my mind.
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To just find ways to get through the bumpies, to get through the bumpy stuff, and let s get back to some laughter.
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and some joy.
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Jada, I m going to give this to you in case you want to read it again.
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Yeah.
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And I want to thank you for, you know, your vulnerability, your openness today and the vulnerability in the book that you shared so profoundly today, but the book, you get to weave the tapestry together and the lessons and where they come in your life.
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And I really,
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I really believe that anyone who will read this book will gain access to a much deeper understanding of themselves as a mirror and also get an opportunity to reframe, rethink, renew ideas, perspective, thoughts about their own journey.
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That is all that I want.
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Like we have so much fear around
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allowing people their journeys because we can tend to get hurt within them along the way, but it s inevitable.
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And the more that we can have acceptance for the reality that life is a journey, nobody is meant to be perfect.
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It baffles me.
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Well, actually, let me take that back.
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It doesn t baffle me because I ve been there.
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It doesn t baffle me.
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I ve been there where just being afraid to allow what is to be, and that is embracing our humanness and learning how to love each other through our humanness.
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All this cancel culture and all of this, that is purely a rejection of aspects of ourselves and a rejection of humanness.
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And that s where unconditional love has its most power, right?
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But if we can learn to do that with us, starting with ourselves, right?
16
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Learning how to have unconditional love for ourselves and have acceptance for our journey.
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And that s what I want from this book.
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I m just putting it out there like, hey, this is what my journey looks like and it ain t cute.
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This is what I ve learned along the way.
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And this is how I learned how to gain self-worth and to feel worthy about it all.
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About it all.
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About it all, J.
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every piece of it.
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And that s all I want for everybody else.
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It s okay.
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It s okay.
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You don t have to come down on yourself.
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And just because we stumble and we might lose our way, doesn t mean we re lost forever.
16
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Thank you, Charles Xavier from X-Men for that statement.
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I love X-Men.
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I do too.
16
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Charles laid it out just like that.
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I had to put that quote in my book, but it s true.
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And that s all I want for everybody.
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We are all worthy, embracing it all, every aspect of our journey.
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That is the thing that makes us worthy.
16
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others because we re so hard on ourselves, we re hard on ourselves because we re so hard on others, and that cycle keeps repeating itself.
16
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Point out someone s flaw because we re pointing them out on ourselves, but not looking at the growth we re trying to make and the growth someone else is trying to make, the healing journey that they re on and the healing journey that we re on.
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And as you were just saying that, what came to my mind was that we all have to take the same steps, but on our own path.
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And I think what this book does
16
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So gracefully show your steps, which reminds us all that even if we trip and we fall, which we inevitably will, there s still another step after that that we can take.
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And that ultimate step is what you just so beautifully put, the step of recognizing that all of it was worthy, all of it was part of that journey towards self-worth.
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And that your love
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You re loved and you re held no matter what.
16
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Through all of the scrutiny and through all of the, I don t know, stones that were thrown at me, as painful as all of that was, what a beautiful gauntlet to get me to the understanding that it s only our self-judgment that s the true enemy.
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And I got to cure so much of my own self-judgment through all of that.
16
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It s almost like being like Wonder Woman, you know?
16
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Pew, pew, pew, you know what I mean?
16
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It s like the great supreme makes it so that you re invincible to all the criticism, anything else anybody has to say about you.
16
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When you get that true sense of worthiness,
16
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It doesn t matter what anybody else thinks.
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It doesn t matter what other misunderstandings are happening.
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And I want that for everybody.
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It s a superpower, but it s not given without the trial.
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It s beautiful.
16
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It s beautiful.
16
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It s beautiful.
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Thank you.
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I m so grateful.
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And thank you, Jay.
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Yeah.
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Thank you, Jay.
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You ve been so good to me through it all.
16
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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So grateful to you two as well for letting me be a small part of the journey because it s one that you give me the bravery to tread myself, so.
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If you love this episode, you ll love my interview with Will Smith on owning your truth and unlocking the power of manifestation.
16
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Anybody who hasn t spoken to their parents or their brother, call them right now.
16
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Don t think you re going to have a chance to call them tomorrow or next week.
16
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That opportunity with my father changed every relationship in my life.
16
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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
16
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
16
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I m your host, Gabby Collins.
16
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
16
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
16
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Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
17
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.