Jada Pinkett Smith on her marriage: ‘I had a very stuck idea of a husband’

Comic-Con International 2014 - Stars Ride The 'Gotham' Zip Line
Jada Pinkett Smith has a new interview with Net-A-Porter, which was brought to my attention by the excellent E! Online. (We need more entertainment news channels. I mean ESPN isn’t the only sports network, there’s Fox Sports. Not that E! doesn’t do a good job, except for their Kardashian problem, but there’s a market for another celebrity news network.) Jada’s editorial is absolutely gorgeous too. It features Jada in structural black and white dresses in a city/urban setting. She looks killer, they did a great job as we’ve come to expect. Net-A-Porter has some of the best editorials around, and you can see Jada’s photos here.

I went off on a minor tangent there because I really don’t want to parse Jada Pinkett Smith’s word salad. She is heavily influenced by Scientology, and it shows in her personal philosophy and her very roundabout way of phrasing things. (She’s not as bad as Ashley Judd, though, and as far as I know Judd isn’t in a cult.) Jada talks about how she is letting her kids be their own people, a theme she and husband Will Smith talk about frequently, and about how her marriage is ok… I think. Jada has hinted in the past that she has an open marriage, or that Will cheats and she’s come to peace with it. I get the impression that she’s saying that again here in a roundabout way.

The actress and mother of two came to daughter Willow Smith’s defense again during an interview with high-end shopping site Net-a-Porter, when she was asked about the controversial photo of her 13-year-old lying in bed with a shirtless Moisés Arias, 20.

“Just don’t pollute something that’s not dirty,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s really tough. I feel like the connection to the value of women on a bigger scale has decreased tremendously. Even though you look and go, ‘Women have so many opportunities,’ it’s like, ‘Yeah, but at what cost?’

“Are women valued for being women, or are women valued when they have more masculine qualities? Men and women encompass both female and masculine energies, but it seems like when the feminine is present, it’s not respected.”

Pinkett Smith also noted earlier in the interview, “I want my kids to be happy and I want them to be themselves. I was saying to a friend the other day, ‘Remember, our kids are not us.’ They’re not. Sometimes we’re trying to fix things that happened to us or projecting [onto them], and that’s a terrible, terrible trap.”

Speaking of her family life, Jada also opened up about her marriage to funnyman Will Smith, gushing about how much the actor means to her and confessing that it took some time to get to where they’re at.

“We used to have all these rules, [but] as you go on in your relationship, you just get into a flow,” she says. “The thing I love is being in a place where it’s just like, Will, to me, encompasses everything. It’s almost as if calling him ‘my husband’ is too small of a word for what he means in my life—and especially how I feel we, as women, identify the idea of a husband.

“I really had to mature and expand that. I think I had a very stuck idea of what a husband looks like, what a wife should be. Once I broke all of that, a whole new world opened for me and man, oh, man, I got to see him in all his glory. And so that’s what it’s evolved into. And I’m just ecstatic about it.”

As for all of the tabloid rumors that surround their relationship, Pinkett Smith says they don’t even pay it any mind.

“The coping technique is knowing what the truth is— here’s no better technique. When you know that what’s going on in your house is so the opposite [of what’s being said], and you also know that when there’s mystery, people fill in the gaps, that’s OK,” she says. “And then you look back at it and look at how creative people can be, and it’s kind of entertaining. We can laugh because it’s so ridiculous. But I get it. I don’t take it personally.”

[From E! Online]

I like Jada’s stance on the tabloids and how she’s ok with it, she gets it and doesn’t take it personally. It sounds like she has a similar approach to her marriage “it is what it is.” She loves Will and he loves her and things don’t have to be perfect. To me infidelity is a deal breaker but maybe to them it isn’t. I can respect that. As long as they’re both ok with it and it’s not one-sided.

2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party

Comic-Con International 2014 - 'Gotham' Press Line

Comic-Con International 2014 - 'Gotham' Press Line

Jada is shown promoting her new show Gotham at Comic-Con and at the VF Oscar Party with Will. photo credit: WENN.com and FameFlynet

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46 Responses to “Jada Pinkett Smith on her marriage: ‘I had a very stuck idea of a husband’”

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  1. eliza says:

    I had no idea women still wore crimson red dagger nails.

  2. wiffie says:

    Came to say, wrong header photo, not jada… Until I saw her smiling. Oh my God she doesn’t even look like herself. Wow..

    • lisa2 says:

      I didn’t realize that was here at first. She looks so different to me in that header picture.

  3. Side-Eye says:

    What has she done to her face?

  4. HappyMom says:

    What in god’s name is she wearing? And I’m not even going to try and begin to understand what she’s saying.

  5. Belle Epoch says:

    Wow this sounds like crap. Scientology just removes the frontal lobes, doesn’t it?

  6. Kiddo says:

    She doesn’t really sound weird in this interview, to me. But does she work anymore? Maybe she should just get a lifestyle page like goop.

  7. FingerBinger says:

    Jada is always babbling about her marriage and parenting philosophies. There’s something not right when you constantly have to explain/justify your marriage and how you parent your children.

    • Olenna says:

      Agree. When I saw the headline, I’m like “Jada, just stop.”

    • wolfpup says:

      I sounds like hogwash, that she cannot convey with the word husband, what he means to her – or that she’s *ecstatic* about their relationship after all these years of marriage? I don’t believe that’s how it works. It just sounds like she is responding the the allegations that her marriage isn’t all that.

  8. Maria says:

    i dislike it so much when people talk about how things evolved and there is so much more now, but never specify what exactly evolved and what it is now.

    i would take people selling papers with lies about my family very personal. maybe because thats the whole definition of personal…

  9. Kim1 says:

    Jada is not COS.She has stated that multiple times.If she was COS she wouldn’t deny it.She gives 0 fu##s about being popular.She loves going against the status quo.
    Oh well what happened to the divorce the tabloids claimed was impending?

    • lisa2 says:

      I don’t think she and Will are in COS.. but I think they embrace some of the teachings of COS. Especially as it relates to raising their children.

    • lucy2 says:

      I’m not so sure – I think they’re in it, but maybe don’t want it to be public knowledge after all the bad press COS has gotten, and the damage to Tom Cruise’s image once he got more vocal about it.

      The person who was hired to run the school they founded has stated that it was all Scientology based, and when she didn’t subscribe to it all she was replaced. I know they denied the school was COS, but the ex-principal said the whole curriculum was L Ron Hubbard stuff.
      They’ve donated to a number of Scientology “causes”.
      After Earth, which Will wrote the story for, was heavily influenced by COS teachings.

      Based on what is known about COS, it doesn’t sound like something you just dabble in, or start a school in, or donate to, if you aren’t involved.

      • hunter says:

        Co$ recruits celebrities specifically so their visibility and affiliation will raise Scientology’s profile. They don’t benefit so much if a celebrity is a “secret member.”

  10. lucy2 says:

    I’m confused as to why she thinks the Willow/Moses photo controversy had anything to do with society’s value of women, or whatever she’s trying to say. People reacted to an utter lack of parenting, and them letting their kids go and do whatever with whoever.

    She is forever talking about their marriage in the press, it’s gotten very strange. And the more she talks, the less convinced everyone is.

    • Faye says:

      @lucy2 – I suspect she throws that argument out to shut down any discussion. Once you’re accused of being anti-woman, or something (although that has no logical connection to the picture), it’s hard to continue a discussion.

      I agree it was a lot better when she didn’t discuss her marriage. She’s heading into Tom Cruise on the couch territory.

  11. Faye says:

    I still feel sorry for those kids (legitimately saying this, not sarcasm). There is clearly no adult at the wheel here when it comes to raising and/or looking out for them.

  12. Diana says:

    Reading her quote was very headache inducing.

  13. kri says:

    Wow. Reading that exhausted and bored me at the same time. She is making no sense in her responses and the “I got to watch Will in all his glory” remark made my eyes roll so far back I saw my own brain stem.

  14. Jayna says:

    Their marriage has been a mess for a couple of years and she stopped cooing over her great marriage and talked in vague terms. It was obviously a very strained marriage. Now, she’s back to having all the answers and an amazing marriage, and we are going to have to hear her pontificate about it for all of us mere mortals with average marriages, not elevated like them. I hope she doesn’t subject us to their great sex life in every interview again like the old says of her interviews.

  15. Mitch Buchanan Rocks! says:

    I really want to know JK’s beauty secrets – her diet and excercies – she is toned and muscular yet has the curves.

  16. Dancinnancy says:

    The way she has been wielding that bat – I’d be cautious if I were Will. lol

    I agree – she has an amazing body. But I do judge her a bit as a parent.

  17. I Choose Me says:

    All I’ve got to say is Low Down Dirty Shame was on the other day and her character Peaches is one of my favourite characters ever. Oh and one more thing she didn’t need those cheek implants but she still has a beautiful smile.

  18. Ally8 says:

    Will Smith and Beyonce would make an interesting power couple.

  19. jenniferjustice says:

    It just seems when some women have been in vulnerable or humiliating circumstances that go public and they choose to stay they play the feminism card but the reality in staying with a cheater and even learning to accept it is not empowering . its the opposite – defeated. I feel sorry for them and I think that’s what they’re trying to avoid because people’s sympathy makes them feel ashamed. Sad.

  20. Jaded says:

    Sounds like she’s been scientolobotomized.

  21. Love HIm says:

    It’s really obvious they have an open marriage. I mean, Will talking about asking his wife for permission and all that? And Jada’s ex-gf coming out and selling her story?