Jada Pinkett Smith Has Made Some Huge Revelations Ahead Of The Release Of Her Memoir, And I Rounded Up All Of Them

As you may have seen, Jada Pinkett Smith is currently on a press tour for her upcoming memoir, Worthy.

In the book, she discusses everything from her early beginnings in Baltimore and her start in Hollywood, to her relationship with the late Tupac Shakur and her marriage to Will Smith.

It comes out next week on Oct. 17 — but Jada's already made a bunch of different revelations ahead of its release. Here are 10 of them.

1. Jada was born to parents who were both "addicted to drugs." She split her time with both her maternal grandmother and her mom growing up. Her father wasn't consistently present throughout her life, and Jada also said he was violent. "Not having a healthy foundation, as I would come to find out way into my adulthood, had some really strong effects in regard to how I saw myself," she told People. Sure, "our parents are not responsible for our wholeness. But I didn't know how to create healthy boundaries, to create healthy relationships."

2. The situation at home led Jada to start selling drugs by the time she was a teenager. "Growing up, the drug dealers were the ones that had affluence," she recalled. "That's what we readily saw as success. And so, for me, considering my circumstances at the time, my mother was not doing well. She was a high-functioning heroin addict. We didn't have the things that we should have. The home we lived in was not taken care of."

Jada said she'd tried a few "legit jobs" first, beginning when she was 12. She did telemarketing and worked at the Gap, before deciding to sell crack cocaine in hopes of gaining "financial freedom." “I thought I was going to be a queenpin, for sure,” she shared. “You can get caught up in the scenery. I was rollin’ with some really high rollers at the time. That's a whole ‘nother Jada, a whole ‘nother Jada that would chase somebody down the alley with a switchblade because they stole $700. Or the Jada that would sell crack cocaine and then get set up and two dudes come in with nine-millimeters and she gets a gun put to her head.”

Jada said, “That was my solution at that particular time to survive. And it really helped me. But it put me into a lot of danger and I hurt a lot of people along the way."

3. She and Will got married in 1997 without a prenup. Jada explained: "Listen, weddings are beautiful, but they can be very romanticized. I feel that was a very real moment for the two of us to look each other in the eyes, recognize that there would be tough times in this journey, and to say to each other, 'No matter what, we’re going to figure it out and that’s why we don’t need a prenup, because I’m making a promise that divorce won’t be necessary, that we will figure this out.' And we made that promise to each other without all of the bridal wedding beauty; it was just sitting on a log in his mother’s backyard and going, 'Hey.' Having to really look at the possibility of us not being together."

4. They secretly separated in 2016. Jada revealed that, by then, the relationship had become "fractured" by "a lot of things."

"By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying," Jada told Hoda Kotb during an interview with Today. "I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be."

Jada said she considered a divorce, but, in the end, she decided against it. "I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through whatever,” Jada explained. “I just haven’t been able to break that promise."

5. Still, she said she was "shocked" when Will called her his wife at the 2022 Oscars.

“I’m really shocked because, mind you, I’m not there. We haven’t called each other husband and wife in a long time,” Jada shared. “I’m like, ‘What is going on right now? Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth?’ I’m really worried for Will because I don’t know what’s going on.”

6. Jada shared that her initial thought was that the slap was fake. "I thought, ‘This is a skit,'" she recalled. "I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him.' It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn’t a skit.”

7. Jada revealed that after Will hit Chris, Chris allegedly approached her immediately and "tried to apologize."

“Chris looks to me and he says, ‘Jada, I meant no harm.' I'm just out of it because I'm really worried about Will. And Will's still talking. Now he’s mad because Chris is talking to me. And I go, ‘Chris, this is about some old shit,'" she said. That’s all I could think of saying, right? And I couldn’t really take in his apology.”

8. She also discussed her history with Chris before the Oscars and told People he once allegedly asked her out amid rumors that she and Will were getting a divorce.

“I think every summer, all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce," Jada shared. "And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce. So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I'd love to take you out.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’"

Jada said: "He was like, ‘Well, aren't you and Will getting a divorce?’ I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.”

9. Jada also talked about her bond with Tupac, whom she described as her "soulmate."

“If there is such a thing as past lives, I definitely think Pac and I have traveled a few together, in various forms,” she told Rolling Out, adding that she had a kind of "friendship love chemistry" with the rapper, whom she first met in high school.

“It was almost like God made us that way,” she continued. “It was like, ‘Look, we’ll put y’all together. Y’all gonna be a dynamic duo, but I’mma tell you right now — I’mma make it so y’all not gonna be able to get together.’ ’Cause that just wasn’t the purpose.”

10. Jada also revealed that she had suicidal ideation in her 40s. “When I turned 40, I was in so much pain. I couldn’t figure a way out besides death. So I made a plan," she recalled to People. “I started looking for places, cliffs where I could have an accident, because I didn't want my kids to think that their mother had committed suicide.”

Jada said in the middle of this, she ended up having an encounter where she tried ayahuasca, which made her thoughts go away. "It helped me, it gave me a new intimate relationship with myself that I had never had before. The suicidal thoughts completely went away."

To hear more from Jada, you can check out Worthy when it hits shelves next week.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, you can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and find more resources here.