Jada Pinkett Smith (EXCLUSIVE): “I just wanted to stay ALIVE until 4pm!”, “Me & Will Are NOT Together”, “Tupac Kissed Me TWICE!”

If you enjoy hearing about the hidden side of Hollywood, I recommend you check out my conversation with Cole Sprouse, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPup-1pDepY Drug dealer, Hollywood star, wife, mother, icon. Jada Pinkett Smith is dismantling her defences and revealing all. In this new episode Steven sits down with global superstar, Jada Pinkett Smith. Jada Pinkett Smith is an American actor who has appeared in films such as, ‘The Nutty Professor’, ‘Magic Mike XXL’ and ‘The Matrix Resurrections’. She is the co-host of the talk show ‘Red Table Talk’, and was named as one of Time magazines’ 100 Most Influential people in 2021. In this conversation Jada and Steven discuss topics, such as: How drugs were here parents priority Taking to the streets to find her identity and self-worth Being told by her father that he couldn’t be her father Using acting and art as an outlet and a way to escape Acting as a way to escape The domestic violence she experienced Wanting to be a hustler and big time drug dealer Drug dealing as a teenager Trying to created herm own safety, security and protection Growing up in a ‘war zone’ and getting used to violence and vigilance Getting a gun pointed to her head at 17 years old Being ‘out of her mind’ and fearless Coming to Hollywood in survival mode Being misunderstood all her life Never feeling as if you have ‘arrived’ and wanting to be loved Meeting Tupac at 14 years old Kissing Tupac and their relationship The greatness of Tupac Meeting Will Smith for the first time How Will Smith taught her never judge a book by its cover Having a mental breakdown and wanting to die Buying a farmhouse to escape Hollywood to build a quiet life Seeing Tupac in Rikers Island prison The last time she ever saw Tupac Still working out her relationship with grief Feeling spiritually bankrupt at the peak of her success Abandoning herself to Will Smith’s dreams The flaws of the romantic dream Being told by Will to go make herself happy Detoxing her need for outside validation and perfection Waking up everyday and just trying to make it to 4pm Planning her suicide to look like an accident Feeling as if she was born broken ‘The Slap’ and taking the blame for events Why ‘The Slap’ was never about her You can purchase Jada’s new memoir, ‘Worthy’, here: https://bit.ly/3S0co4z Follow Jada: Instagram: https://bit.ly/46vt340 Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RSjGYo Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I was in a cycle of self-hatred. And it was just a really dark time. I want out. And I knew I had to make it look like an accident because I did not want my kids to think that I had committed something.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Please welcome Jada Pinkett Smith.

• 0:22Steven Bartlett?

  Jada, I knew you as a Hollywood actress. I never knew you were the daughter of two drug-addicted parents and a teenage drug dealer yourself on the streets of Baltimore.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  I really thought I was gonna be the next big-time female drug dealer. I was absolutely fearless. But getting two 9mm pointed at you.

• 0:38Steven Bartlett?

  They pointed two guns at you.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  That's a big wake-up call.

• 0:42Steven Bartlett?

  What happened?

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Somebody set me up. And then I had to always have this tough exterior. Now, as I'm dismantling my defenses, I'm in a really raw place.

• 0:54Steven Bartlett?

  The holy slap. What happened?

• 0:56Speaker 00

  I knew I was gonna get blamed, but like, it was insane.

• 0:59Steven Bartlett?

  You say protection is your love language. Did you see that as an act of love? The entanglement conversation.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  We broke up.

• 1:07Steven Bartlett?

  And then what did you do, Jada?

• 1:08Speaker 00

  My mother, my kids, they were like, "How could you do this?"

• 1:13Steven Bartlett?

  Do you regret putting that out?

• 1:14Speaker 00

  Honestly?

• 1:16Steven Bartlett?

  I've got this wonderful picture that I found.

• 1:18Speaker 00

  Oh, I know that picture. Do you know why this is relevant?

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. I lost them back to back.

• 1:38Steven Bartlett?

  Jada?

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Yes?

• 1:40Steven Bartlett?

  I always believe that in order to understand someone, you have to understand their context. And having read through the entirety of your book, there was this line that stood out to me, which I think might be, might summarize the most important part of your earliest context, which is, "When I go in search of the origins of my broken heart, it is the sense of not being the priority to the two people who gave me life that creates a fracture in my feeling of worth."

• 2:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:09Steven Bartlett?

  Why did you write that line?

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Because it's true. You know, it's like our parents are like our first mirrors. And so my parents were really young when they had me. I mean, my mom was seventeen, right? Seventeen, eighteen. She was seventeen when she was pregnant. I think she was eighteen by the time she had me. So youth on top of addiction. And I just realized, you know, as I was going through my life in different therapeutic settings, I was like, oh, wow. Like, the first mirror I had was kind of nonexistent in a way. Because drugs were my parents' priority, you know,

• 2:57Speaker 00

  during my upbringing. And so I didn't really get the reflection of feeling like a priority to the people who brought me into the world. Now, thank goodness, my grandmother came into the picture, you know? And she really, she was a beautiful, powerful mirror for me that, you know, even to my, you know, it's still a mirror for me to this day. Where I could see myself, I could see the beauty of myself. I could see my gifts and my talents was through her and what she was reflecting back to me. But I think it's important that, I think it's important, if it's possible,

• 3:41Speaker 00

  for children to feel that sense of, that sense of importance, that sense of priority from their parents.

• 3:56Steven Bartlett?

  I had an air of sort of loneliness as I read through the pages. This kind of lonely young girl who was searching to be recognized and loved and to, someone to sort of hold her hand and guide her through those early years. And other than in your grandmother's garden with your grandmother.

• 4:15Steven Bartlett?

  It it felt like that place of home was never was never really there.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I definitely had it with my grandmother. Now, once she passed, that's when I took to the streets to like figure out, finding

• 4:33Speaker 00

  my home, finding my tribe, finding my power, finding my identity, finding my purpose, finding my worth.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:44Steven Bartlett?

  Your dad.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 4:46Steven Bartlett?

  Rob.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:50Steven Bartlett?

  He um, he took you for a walk one day and explained to you why he couldn't be your father.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  He did. I was seven and um, he just said, he said, look, I'm a, I'm an addict and a criminal and I can't be your father. And I was like, now, mind you, he hadn't really been in my life that much anyway. I didn't really know, he wasn't present in my, in my life enough for me to even know what it was like to have a father. But what I did appreciate in that moment was like, wow, just thank you. Thank you for like being honest. Now, I didn't realize at that time, because I was so young, how that would affect my relationships with men ongoing, and you know, as an adult woman.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  But yeah, in that moment, I was just like, thank you, somebody is like being honest with me. I'm not crazy. Something is absolutely not right here and he's letting me know what that is. And he's saying, hey, I'm gonna keep my distance. You know.

• 5:59Steven Bartlett?

  Ten years old, twelve, thirteen years old, what does Jada think she's gonna be when she grows up?

• 6:05Speaker 00

  At ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, I I definitely was like, I wanted to be an artist, definitely wanted to be an actress.

• 6:15Steven Bartlett?

  You wanted to be an actress?

• 6:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I did. I did. I wanted to be an actress. I started very young. I was doing theater. I think my first professional gig was like seven years old as one of Madame Bonbon's children in The Nutcracker. And then I was in, you know, different theatrical programs in the summertime and what have you. And then the, uh, when I got the opportunity to join TWIGS, which prepared you for Baltimore School for the Arts, I joined that after-school program. So arts has always been a big part of my life.

• 6:53Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know why? Because when I, as I read through those early years of your life, it seemed that acting was doing something. The, the performance, the being on stage, the, the validation, I think, it was giving you was doing something for you that it might not have done for someone else who hadn't walked the steps you'd walked up until that point.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  The validation, but also an outlet. It was a real outlet for me where I was able to express certain feelings that I didn't feel like I had the permission to express at home. Um, and, um, it was a huge,

• 7:34Speaker 00

  it was a huge outlet for me in that way. I mean, to the point that my theater teachers would often tell me, um, you know, they'd try to steer me into like, why don't you try more comedic roles? You know, I was always going for the very dramatic, very highly emotional, you know, uh, roles. Um, and my, I just remember my theater teachers always trying to guide me into diversifying the monologues that I would choose uh, for, for my pieces to work on in class.

• 8:11Steven Bartlett?

  I read, um, I read some books. I think one of them was called The Body Holds the Score, which talks about the role that acting can play as sort of a therapy.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:21Steven Bartlett?

  And it's so. It seems to not be a coincidence that the amount of actors I've sat here and spoke with, who have pretty unthinkable early childhood experiences, domestic violence in the home, etc. That then find acting as an outlet for a form of escapism, almost escaping the identity, embodying a different role.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Absolutely, totally agree, totally agree.

• 8:46Steven Bartlett?

  As I read it in your story, I was like, not another one.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Yes, another one.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  It's classic. Yeah.

• 8:55Steven Bartlett?

  And I reflect on some of the words you wrote in the early part of the book, where you're talking about your mother and your father. There being domestic violence in the home at an early age, your mother running out of the house, dropping you on the floor because Rob had punched her, I believe your father had punched her.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:14Steven Bartlett?

  These are stories, I guess, you've heard after the fact from your mother.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:20Steven Bartlett?

  But I guess you believe those moments leave a mark.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  Absolutely. I mean, my mother talks about it to this day and will choke up, she'll, you know, cry. It's like, it's, it's, you don't get over things in the sense of like, it's forgotten. You know, you learn to cope with it, you heal in a certain manner, but it still can leave a certain imprint upon you. And even hearing those stories are not easy, you know, even as an adult, because she didn't really give me the details until I was...

• 9:53Speaker 00

  I mean, my kids would daggone their adults before she shared with me the level of violence that she dealt with, with my dad.

• 10:02Steven Bartlett?

  Did it help you understand yourself?

• 10:05Steven Bartlett?

  Did it help you connect dots?

• 10:08Speaker 00

  I don't know if it helped me understand myself as much as it helped me understand my mother.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  And then that helped me understand a lot of how her journey has imprinted upon me in a certain manner. You know? So I guess it does if you, you know, through, through my mother and her journey, helped me understand her journey, which has affected me. So, yeah, I guess you could say that it helped me understand myself more.

• 10:40Steven Bartlett?

  I say that because I sat with, you know, Gabor Maté. Gabor?

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah, yes.

• 10:46Steven Bartlett?

  He was the, he's the person that opened my eyes to the fact that even the things that occurred when we are babies.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:52Steven Bartlett?

  We interpret them to mean certain things about ourselves. And he says babies are incredibly selfish. So, for example, if the parents are arguing, the baby will interpret that as a reflection of them.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 11:04Steven Bartlett?

  And I think about the early context that I think I read about in your story, but also that appears in mine and how I interpreted that to mean that I wasn't enough in some way.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:14Steven Bartlett?

  Which is a real through line throughout your story.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. And I think that probably is probably more subconscious, unconscious than that which the abuse of drugs and how that reflected to me that I wasn't

• 11:37Speaker 00

  worthy in a certain manner that why is it that this particular substance has more power over, you know, has more attention, more power, more influence than me? To the point that your father will tell you,

• 11:55Speaker 00

  I'm relinquishing my parental rights because I'd rather be a criminal and a drug addict than try to get my shit together for you. Is the way I interpreted that.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  And at the same time, it was like, just thank you for being honest. Instead of sitting up here pretending like you're doing something different. Thank you. You know? Which a lot of people would do.

• 12:23Steven Bartlett?

  Tony, was he your, he was your, your mother's first partner after Rob?

• 12:29Speaker 00

  No. She, he was her first husband.

• 12:32Steven Bartlett?

  First husband, okay.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, after Rob.

• 12:34Steven Bartlett?

  And he seemed to be a pretty solid father figure.

• 12:36Speaker 00

  He was solid, yeah, he was, he was indeed.

• 12:39Steven Bartlett?

  It's, it, this guy comes into your life and plays the role of a father by all accounts. He seems to do a pretty good job and seems to love on you in a way that is sufficient for a child. But then, he too vanishes out of your life.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  Makes a exit.

• 12:59Steven Bartlett?

  Makes an exit.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, which I understand, you know, as an adult now, looking back and, and looking at the circumstances. You know, he did the best that he could. He's a man that was trying to get his life together. And my mother was, was deep in her addiction.

• 13:16Steven Bartlett?

  Addiction to?

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Heroin at that time. And so you, you can't, you can't negotiate with that. It's either you want to get help, you know,

• 13:29Speaker 00

  or you have to. Sometimes you have to make clean breaks. I know that now as an adult. And you don't always know how to play the middle. You know? And so I get it.

• 13:44Steven Bartlett?

  What does that do to you as a young, a young woman who's trying to figure out what, where safety is?

• 13:49Speaker 00

  It's devastating. It's devastating. I mean, I completely abandoned feeling like I could depend on anyone. Which is why I just took to the streets. I was like, you know what? I'm gonna figure out.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  How to make money, gain power, and create a situation where I can protect myself and my mother. And to make sure, just in case she doesn't make it, I'm gonna be okay.

• 14:19Steven Bartlett?

  You take to the streets. When you say take to the streets, what you mean by that?

• 14:24Speaker 00

  When I would see, you know, the high rollers, the hustlers, I was like, oh, that's what I want. You know, I want to have the Mercedes. I want to have big wads of cash in my pocket. I want to have friends around me that will protect me. And I want to be able to have security and stability created by my own hands. I don't want to depend on anybody. Not only do I not want to depend on anybody, I can't depend on anyone. And so the streets,

• 15:02Speaker 00

  that's where I saw security. Because we didn't have doctors and lawyers, you know, to

• 15:12Speaker 00

  look upon, you know, like that's the aspiration, right? Because in our neighborhoods, that's what we had. We had hustlers, right? And they had the good life. So you could be a hustler, or you could be a hustler's girlfriend. I wasn't trying to be the girl. I wasn't trying to be the girlfriend.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  And so

• 15:35Speaker 00

  I'd look to

• 15:38Speaker 00

  to that lifestyle to offer me the security that I didn't have at home. As an opportunity for me to create that security that I didn't have at home.

• 15:50Steven Bartlett?

  Security,

• 15:53Steven Bartlett?

  protection, safety.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:57Steven Bartlett?

  These are all words that appear over and over again in your book.

• 16:03Speaker 00

  I know, right? Yeah.

• 16:05Steven Bartlett?

  Childhood to adulthood, those are the

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Those are it.

• 16:08Steven Bartlett?

  The recurring words.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:11Steven Bartlett?

  And you you found that security in part through a lifestyle of drug dealing yourself. And which, again, I said to you before we started recording, Jada, that I knew of you as a Hollywood actress. You know, that's what I that's what I knew of you of. I'm not someone that's hugely involved in media or TV or movies. So that's what I thought. I never in my life am I thought of you as the daughter of two drug addicted parents who had chosen their addiction over you. And I never knew that you started dealing drugs when you were very, very young. Were you were you not scared dealing drugs in Baltimore?

• 16:49Speaker 00

  You you don't have time to be scared. That environment was a war zone, right? And so it's like, stuff was popping off all the time. So you just get used to a certain level of violence. You get used to a certain level of

• 17:08Speaker 00

  just vigilance, because that's what you're given. So you just learn to adapt to that kind of environment. So the levels, what what somebody might consider dangerous

• 17:23Speaker 00

  for me was just normal. It wasn't like, ooh, I'm going into something crazy here. You know, it's like, shit, everything's crazy. So what, right? So I look at it now and I go, what in the world? You know, but I have I'm living a different reality. In that time, when I was living that reality, that's what life was. And everybody, that's what we were all living.

• 17:51Steven Bartlett?

  Was there moments that were wake up calls?

• 17:55Speaker 00

  Hell, yeah.

• 17:57Steven Bartlett?

  When you were dealing drugs?

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Listen, getting two nine millimeters pointed at you at one time, one to your head, that's a that you would think that's a big wake up call.

• 18:07Steven Bartlett?

  Jada, we don't all know what nine millimeter is.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Oh, you know,

• 18:11Speaker 00

  guns, you know? It's two big guns, you know?

• 18:15Steven Bartlett?

  When did that happen?

• 18:17Speaker 00

  Um, I had to be.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Seventeen.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  Seventeen. Seventeen years old, because that was my senior year of high school.

• 18:31Steven Bartlett?

  And what was the reason that someone pointed two guns at your head?

• 18:36Speaker 00

  I was, I had posted up in this, in the projects, in this apartment, on the bottom floor, where I would sell drugs out of the window or through the door of that particular apartment.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  And somebody set me up, to make a long story short, somebody set me up. And as I was making the exchange through the door that had the chain on it,

• 19:05Speaker 00

  two guys from the side of the door, which I couldn't see because I'm looking through the peephole, two guys from the side of the door come around and kick the door in and pull out guns, point them to me, and take all my money, my jewelry, and stash. And I was really lucky to make it out of that alive, for sure, because the person who led that robbery ended up killing two drug dealers

• 19:39Speaker 00

  two weeks or a month after. Put them in a, put them in a trunk, shot the trunk up, and murdered two guys. And he ended up doing life for that. But I could tell as he was leaving, you know, it's so interesting when you're in moments like that. I can still see his eyes as he's leaving me and how he's making a choice in the moment of what he's gonna do with me.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  And by the grace of God.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  He left me there.

• 20:20Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Well, when, of course, I, you know, my crazy self, because of who,

• 20:29Speaker 00

  because of the protection that I was under at the time, I called that person. I was like, I just got robbed. He knew exactly. He knew exactly. He's like, I know who this is. Don't worry about anything. I was like, I want my shit back. And so we actually, um, that person, whose wing I was under, he made for a meeting, for us to meet in that area, a couple of days later. He was like, you're not gonna get your money back. You're not gonna get the drugs back. But maybe there might be some pieces of jewelry of yours that he'll, you know, he hasn't sold yet. And that's, he was exactly right. He had, you know, a couple chains, whatever. And I told, I asked him, I said, you know,

• 21:14Speaker 00

  why'd you just leave me there? Like, and he said, you were too pretty. And that was the first time, and I talk about this in the book. That was the first time that I was like, well, maybe I am pretty because

• 21:27Speaker 00

  I was like, maybe I am pretty because, you know, he, because this, this was a stone cold killer. And I talk about even when I met him, how he looked like he, he had never felt any kind of love in his life.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  And I'm just, I, I don't know what kind of crazy nut I was at that time. I was just so

• 21:52Speaker 00

  all I could say is just out of my mind. Like, I was just in such an alter reality. I, I, I really thought I was gonna be the next Queen Penn, first of all.

• 22:01Steven Bartlett?

  Again, a lot of people don't know why Queen Penn is dangerous.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, you know, I thought I was gonna be the next, you know, like, big time female drug dealer. You know, and I really had, I was, I was crazy. I absolutely was just a nut because I had no fear whatsoever. I was absolutely fearless to be rolling with these wolves like this. And like it was nothing. Like it was absolutely nothing. I think about that today. I think of my, my daughter. I'm like, what the, like,

• 22:35Speaker 00

  I don't know. All I can, and that's when I know, and I think back on everything that I've been through. I was like, there is a God for sure. There was a God. Cause that dude,

• 22:48Speaker 00

  for me to even wanna see his face again was like, I want my shit back.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  And he had it, he had it for me. He was like, there you go, you know? And so, um, but it prepared me for Hollywood. It prepared me. It prepared me big time.

• 23:08Steven Bartlett?

  How?

• 23:08Speaker 00

  It prepared me in a way because I was running with killers. That's, it's as simple as that, right? So the Hollywood flex,

• 23:18Speaker 00

  you know, dudes who were

• 23:22Speaker 00

  presenting themselves as like these powerful, you know, if you don't do what I say, like, bruh, honestly?

• 23:31Speaker 00

  It, it, it just didn't resonate that way for me. I just looked at it, I looked at all of that as just kinda like

• 23:41Speaker 00

  puppy play.

• 23:44Steven Bartlett?

  It didn't resonate with you, but from the words you describe in your book about how you received in Hollywood, it appears that you didn't resonate with Hollywood either.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  For a while I did not, yeah, for a minute.

• 23:57Steven Bartlett?

  This rough around the edges.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Rough around the edges, yeah, because, I mean, it was part of what was refreshing for a lot of people, but it was also the thing that was standoffish too, right?

• 24:10Steven Bartlett?

  What is that?

• 24:11Speaker 00

  Um, I think just that, that edge that I came with, that no, you know, having no fucks to give, basically, it was just like, I'm here to do me. What? You know, and I got something to offer. And if you can't see it, well, then that's on you, your loss. You know, just that kinda attitude and just kinda like, you know, I wasn't your prim, proper, uh, demure young lady, you know, it was just kinda like, I was just rough, rugged.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  And rambunctious.

• 24:49Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting, isn't it, in life, how a certain type of demeanor or attitude or mindset can help us to survive and thrive in one context. But sometimes we need to figure out how to turn that shit off.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Yes, and that's what I had to learn to do.

• 25:02Steven Bartlett?

  Because you weren't in survival anymore.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  I wasn't in survival anymore, you know, and I talk about this in the book, you know, how Warren Beatty, bless him, he was probably one of the first people that was just like, hey, you're in Hollywood now, okay, I get it. But why don't you allow people to see some other aspects? That charm you have, that smile you have, like, let's take that, let's take that chip off your shoulder a little bit, you know? And he was the first person, really, to talk to me in a way that wasn't like making me wrong, right? He didn't make me wrong for being who I was. He was just like, there's so much more to you.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  Let people see that, you know? And that was the first time I actually listened because he didn't make me wrong. And I bet you Warren has no idea that how, how much that conversation and the time that he spent with me really meant to me. It was really awesome because he was, he was so respectful and he really honored where I sat and where, you, you didn't get that often in Hollywood. It was just like, no, you gotta change this, you gotta do this different. You, you'll never get jobs like that. I was just like, well, then I won't work because, you know, I was very rebellious

• 26:32Speaker 00

  sometimes in that way.

• 26:36Speaker 00

  But yeah, he really, that really stuck with me. And from that day on, I just started on the journey of trying to figure out how to not lose myself, but also feel.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  Find a way to feel safe to take that approach. Because like I said, I was around wolves all the time, so I had to always be on guard. I had to always have this tough exterior. I always had to carry the attitude like, I'm not the one. You don't want to come over here.

• 27:18Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting because when you putting up such a barrier to defend yourself

• 27:25Steven Bartlett?

  can often make us quite hard to

• 27:30Steven Bartlett?

  form

• 27:32Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, absolutely.

• 27:34Steven Bartlett?

  The reason I pause there is because I'm thinking about what you said in the book after Tony left you, who was your mother's new husband. He left abruptly abruptly after playing the role of a father. And you said the line about the rejection was brutal. Something broke inside me. My grief was oceanic. I put on a light, I put it on a library shelf labeled unlovable. And I tried to leave it there. That's another word that comes up over and over again, this word unlovable. And it's funny because when people are, when they feel unlovable themselves, they do often put up these walls which make them, it's almost like self fulfilling.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  Right. Exactly.

• 28:11Steven Bartlett?

  And that's the essence of what I felt in Jada when she arrives in Hollywood is this person who's got this sort of little bit of a tough exterior up, but not because, not because she's not, you know.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, not because, you know, it was really just, it was, it was so many things I was trying to protect.

• 28:27Steven Bartlett?

  It was defense, not offense.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Exactly, yeah, it was. And, and I still to this day, you know, people like, you know, I still to this day have to like manage that because it's just, it's just in me, it's just part of me, it's something, because it was such a.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  It was, you know, it was something that was built at the foundation. You know, it's in my DNA.

• 28:56Steven Bartlett?

  Default, isn't it?

• 28:57Speaker 00

  Yes, my default. So it's like, and I do it well. I can just, you won't know anything that's going on, but like you said, it's like, well then you don't give yourself an opportunity to make the connections that you really want to have.

• 29:11Steven Bartlett?

  And you're gonna be misunderstood.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Stud, yeah. All the time, which that is like, that has been my life too, just misunderstood.

• 29:23Steven Bartlett?

  Another thing I learnt from reading the book, which is gonna shock you that I didn't know, but this shows how little I am tuned into media and Hollywood and all that. Is your relationship with Tupac.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:34Steven Bartlett?

  He comes over, introduces himself.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, first day of school, Baltimore School for the Arts. And um, as soon as I walk in, he's holding court. He's holding court.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  He's a like, he's a charismatic from day one. He's holding court. And I'm like, who's, who's that peanut head dude over there, you know, and I'm coming in, I'm rocking, you know, I'm Jada. I'm walking in, I got the rat tail, I got the fly clothes, you know. And he turns and we, our eyes just meet. And I'm like, oh. And then, you know, I'm, I'm going to hold my court, you know?

• 30:19Speaker 00

  And so then he comes over, you know, I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, whatever. And so he comes over and he's like, hey, I'm Tupac. And I'm like, Tupac? The name from the gate was just like, I never heard a name like that before. That was such a powerful, different name. And I was like Tupac. And he had this big smile. And I was like, it's not a lot of people that have that kind of like, charisma and courage to just walk up on me on just like, I'm Tupac, I'm, you know what I mean? You need to know me, you know? And from the, right from there, inseparable. We became the best of friends from that moment on. We just connected. It was as if we already knew each other. It's crazy.

• 31:03Steven Bartlett?

  People will find it hard to believe that at that age in that environment, it wasn't a romantic thing.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  I know. People have had a really hard time, you know, understanding that. Pac and I had a hard time understanding why it just didn't, we didn't have it. And I talk about it in the book, you know, that being on the back porch of my house and we're like having this discussion. I'm like, okay, Pac just kissed me. And he kisses me and it's the most disgusting kiss between us both. I mean, he pulled back just like, and I pulled back and I was like, see? Dummy, you know, and from there it was just like, and then there was one more time. He kissed me and it was just like,

• 31:49Speaker 00

  and I talk about that in jail when I go to see him in Dannamora. That's a whole nother thing. And once again, it's just like, dude, doesn't work. But throughout our relationship, we definitely had this beautiful closeness that was really intimate, but never physically intimate. Lot of emotional intimacy, a lot of intellectual intimacy. We just knew how to reach each other in ways that was very difficult.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  We knew how to get around each other's walls. And we didn't get offended when we would fall into our defaults of defense, which could be pretty fierce between the two of us. He was quite.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  A powerhouse, and so was I. We could be very challenging when we got riled up. So, arguments, we were very passionate. But because we were one in the same in that way, we kind of understood that language, like, oh, this joke is... You know what I mean? So, we didn't get offended a lot until one particular time, which comes later in the book.

• 33:16Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, when you come from the same place, or you know the origin stories, you don't have that misunderstood thing you talk about. Because you understand.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  I just understood him. I just understood him. And he understood me. He really got me. And he really knew how to pull my coattails in ways that a lot of people didn't. And same for me with him. I just knew how to reach him in ways that... And that had everything to... And I think because we didn't have that kind of... I think sometimes, physical intimacy can really get in the way.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  You know?

• 33:55Speaker 00

  And I think that God just made it that way, in which God was like, no, no, no, I need you to be... I got a plan. So, that's not part of plan.

• 34:05Steven Bartlett?

  Did you know... Did you, in your heart of hearts, know that Tupac was going to go on to do what he did?

• 34:15Speaker 00

  I knew he was gonna go to do something.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  I did not know he would become the Tupac we know him to be. But I knew he was gonna do something great.

• 34:27Steven Bartlett?

  In hindsight, when you look back at who he was, the character traits, the ingredients that were within him, why did he go on to do what he did? What was it about him?

• 34:38Speaker 00

  He wore his heart on his sleeve, and he could join you.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  And so, what I mean by joining you is that he's not talking at you, he's talking with you. He had a way of being able to speak about subject matters that...

• 34:59Speaker 00

  He's gonna sit with you in your broken heart and speak to you from there. Because he knows that broken heart. He's lived that broken heart, so. And whether it's your broken heart, whether it's your rage.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  But he just knew how to penetrate those emotional spaces in people. And that's what I mean by joining you. He knew how to join you emotionally.

• 35:31Speaker 00

  In so many different verticals of emotion. You know, he was supremely intelligent as well. He was so authentic also and so raw that I think that was really refreshing as well. He gave you him.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  And he was unapologetic. So he's gonna give you his intelligence. He's gonna give you his fear. He's gonna give you his pain. He's gonna give you his anger. You know, he's gonna give you his sympathy. He's gonna give you his understanding. Right, but

• 36:08Speaker 00

  it was coming from that that heart space, that that that real space within. It wasn't a gimmick. It wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna talk about this because this is what's hot. No.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  You know, right, wrong, indifferent. He gave you his truth. And some truths people could rock with with him and some truths you couldn't. You know what I mean? And but regardless, it was what was real for him at that time. He was always authentic.

• 36:40Steven Bartlett?

  But it's not easy. It comes with a cost, right?

• 36:42Speaker 00

  It comes with a cost.

• 36:44Steven Bartlett?

  Because it's almost the opposite of conformity in a way, authenticity.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And he was a rebel in that way. And I think people really at at at points in his career. You know, he could speak. He would speak for the community. And then at points of his career, he would speak from that that really intimate place of woundedness.

• 37:08Steven Bartlett?

  Dear mama.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, there's so many of us related to. Nobody was speaking to us in that way.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  That could, that could go from ambitions of a writer to shed so many tears to a soldier's story? Come on. Come on. You know, to, I mean, he had so, he could speak to us from so many different angles.

• 37:41Steven Bartlett?

  That is just the evidence of authenticity, isn't it? Because people are multifaceted in their nature. No one is just ambition of a writer.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:48Steven Bartlett?

  We are all, all the shades.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  All, all the shades, right?

• 37:50Steven Bartlett?

  But rap, rap music, especially back then, was very narrowing. It was like, this is how to be a rapper. So someone willing to be authentic, it's funny, I've seen this over and over again, they, they are the most resonant people in the world because they represent us in a way that a lot of others aren't brave enough to represent us. And that's also what vulnerability does.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:07Steven Bartlett?

  That's what you do as well in this book.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Well, thank you.

• 38:10Steven Bartlett?

  Because, because you're willing to lay it all out, we can relate to, many people will be able to relate to many parts of you. And, you know, without books like this, we get narrow views. And those narrow views, I mean, those are crafted by other people, and they're the least relatable narratives, right?

• 38:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, and we're also multi-dimensional.

• 38:32Steven Bartlett?

  You move to LA, you're working three jobs, you start trying to climb into the ladder of Hollywood. At this point, you, you meet a certain Fresh Prince.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  The Savior Prince.

• 38:48Steven Bartlett?

  The Savior Prince.

• 38:49Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:50Steven Bartlett?

  And I was quite shocked by, I think of, I think of Will Smith, I think charismatic, he's a good-looking guy.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:57Steven Bartlett?

  You didn't seem to think that.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  No.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  No, not at first, yeah.

• 39:04Steven Bartlett?

  What did you think at first?

• 39:06Speaker 00

  I mean, he was the Fresh Prince. I was like, okay, he's cool, you know? But I was like, not, not, not the guy for me, you know?

• 39:14Steven Bartlett?

  Why? Was he too soft?

• 39:16Speaker 00

  I wouldn't say he, I wouldn't say soft. I would just say that he didn't seem deep.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  And I talk about this in the book, how at that time, a troubled dude seemed deep to me versus just troubled. It's like, stay away from the troubles.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  Right, and so he wasn't troubled. It didn't seem to be, right? And so I was like, that's not deep. Like, he just seems like, you know, just didn't draw me in that way.

• 39:53Steven Bartlett?

  You don't feel the same way anymore, though, do you?

• 39:55Speaker 00

  No.

• 39:56Steven Bartlett?

  The deep parts.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  Oh, no, he's actually, yeah, exactly, yeah. Yeah, don't judge a book by its cover. That's, that's, that's what Will Smith taught me. It was like, not to judge a book by its cover. And I learned that, you know, years later, when we had an opportunity to have, you know, we had a mutual friend. And so we were able to share some time at Jerry's Deli over a meal. And I got to see a totally different side of him.

• 40:24Steven Bartlett?

  Dwayne?

• 40:25Speaker 00

  Dwayne Martin.

• 40:26Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:27Steven Bartlett?

  You went to that jacket potato place?

• 40:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, the baked potato, mhm.

• 40:31Steven Bartlett?

  What was it about? What did you see in Will that night? I found it really interesting because one of the things that you described seeing in him was someone who was quite adamant in taking over the world.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was so ambitious, you know? And in such a beautiful way. He had big dreams, big dreams. And, um, and he was so joyful. He was really joyful, but grounded.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  And that was the part that I missed.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  He was grounded. It was like, he'd been through some things and he was really intelligent.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  So he's what you call, you know, he could go from the hood to the White House and everywhere in between, right? And I always find people like that fascinating that have a wide range within them, places that they can go. You know, you drop Will anywhere and he's gonna figure it out and fit in.

• 41:41Steven Bartlett?

  He'd asked you to be his on-screen girlfriend, hadn't he?

• 41:44Speaker 00

  He, okay, yeah. So I auditioned for Fresh Prince. I think it was the second year to play one of his girlfriends. And they were like, you're too short. And I was like, all right, oh, cool.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  And so that was the first time that I actually met Will. I came out of the, the casting. And he was, you know, coming into the casting office or about to leave or something. And he was like, hey, I was like, yeah, what's up? You know, I was like, no need to talk to me. They already said I'm, I'm short. Yeah, so I'm on my way. And then, and I think, I think I was probably about 20. Um, and he wanted, he, he wanted me to play his, you know, his girlfriend as a series regular. So he flew in to North Carolina to meet me. And I was like, nah, I'm gonna do movies now. And he was like, all right, cool.

• 42:43Steven Bartlett?

  That's a, that's a bold, that's a big rejection. To reject The Fresh Prince of Baller. When he says you can be his sort of recurring on-screen girlfriend in a hit show. And you say, TV's not for me, I'm gonna focus on movies. Big call.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  Well, I had just done it. I had just come off of a different world. And I knew like, I had the protection of Debbie Allen on A Different World, right? And so when I wanted to make moves, Debbie was there to help me. That's not to say that I would have that same assistance on Fresh Prince. And at that time, they locked you in. You couldn't do anything. You know what I mean? They have you for six years, they got you locked. And I, I just didn't want to be locked like that. And so I really wanted to try my hand at doing movies. And then Dwayne Martin, when I turned Will down, Dwayne Martin got on me. Cause he felt the same way you did.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  It was just like, it's financial security. How could you let something like this go? And you know, who's to say when your next starring movie, you know, role is gonna come in? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, but I'm so glad that I didn't take that role. Cause I tell you what, if I had taken that role, Will and I would not have been married. And I wouldn't have had Jayden and Willow and been Trey's bonus mom. My life would have been totally different.

• 44:06Steven Bartlett?

  You sure?

• 44:06Speaker 00

  I'm positive. Yeah.

• 44:09Steven Bartlett?

  As in you're sure that you wouldn't have gotten married?

• 44:11Speaker 00

  I'm positive.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, no.

• 44:15Steven Bartlett?

  You would have seen the red flags?

• 44:17Speaker 00

  I listen. No.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, no.

• 44:23Steven Bartlett?

  Earthquakes are hard to predict. Sometimes you feel tremors ahead of time. Often, they come on suddenly. And in your early twenties, you had your first, maybe not even your first, but what you describe in the book as your first breakdown, personal earthquake when you're driving down the street one day.

• 44:42Steven Bartlett?

  Mental health and psychiatry have come a long way since then.

• 44:47Steven Bartlett?

  I would guess that at the time, many people wouldn't have been able to tell you what that was.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  I had no idea what was going on. Me just thinking about that moment, just, it's like, um.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  I was so overwhelmed, you know, and I was like, I, I didn't know what was going on with me. And it came over me in an instant. I was fine one moment.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  I'm turning my car around to meet a friend on the corner that, you know, I saw to say, and to say hello to her. And all of a sudden, my body shaking, all these emotions come over me and I, I'm like, I'm starting to, it's like waterfall of like tears. And I, I'm like, and I have no idea, like my brain is not catching up to what is happening with my body. All I know is that this waterfall, this volcano of emotions, it was fear, anger, despair. And I was like, I, I got, and she was looking at me like, are you okay? And I was like, I, I don't know. I, you know, and I get in the car

• 46:00Speaker 00

  and I'm trying to drive and I'm like, you can't drive. Pull over. And then I pull over. And then I just remember.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  Feeling terrified to just let it go and I let it go. And then I'm like, I wanna die.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  I wanna die.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  And I remember making it home. And all I could do was call my mother. And say, "You gotta come here, I'm gonna kill myself." You know, and I think about that and I'm just like, wow. And my mother was like, she was maybe a year into her sobriety?

• 46:48Speaker 00

  Right? And what a terrifying call to get, like if I get that call from Willow or Jaden or Trey, I'm just, you know, it's like, and um,

• 46:58Speaker 00

  so she's figuring out, because she just started a job at this hospital.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  I'm so terrified to be by myself. I call my homegirl, MC Light. And I tell her, I was like, "You gotta come out here. I'm afraid to be alone by myself. I'm gonna do something to myself." And she flies out. And so she holds me down until my mother comes.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  It's a crazy moment.

• 47:35Steven Bartlett?

  Have you figured out what, what your body was telling you?

• 47:40Speaker 00

  I think my body was telling me that, I think my mind

• 47:47Speaker 00

  was telling me, hey,

• 47:51Speaker 00

  we have some things we gotta pay attention to up here. Enough with, let's keep it moving. I'm gonna make it so you're not gonna just be able to keep it moving anymore. You have some things that you gotta pay attention to, some things that need to be addressed. And at the time,

• 48:13Speaker 00

  Like you were just talking about, nobody was talking about mental health at all. And specifically, mental health was considered like a white people thing. Black people don't have mental health issues, right? And so suicide for sure was a white people thing. So I was real confused. I I felt really, I felt like something is is has gone really, really, really wrong here. Because nobody else like me feels like this. Nobody knows what's going on.

• 48:56Speaker 00

  And maybe I'm losing my mind, I'm actually going crazy.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  No, so it was a scary time.

• 49:08Steven Bartlett?

  When I read about that, it sounded to me like you'd been you'd been playing defense for just a little bit too long.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure, for sure.

• 49:17Steven Bartlett?

  And that's, I guess, one of the costs of the toughness, right? The like, as you say, we'll just keep it moving.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  We just keep it moving.

• 49:24Steven Bartlett?

  Nobody's immune, are they?

• 49:25Speaker 00

  No, it's gonna catch you. You can deal with it, or it will deal with you. Those are your choi- those are your two choices.

• 49:35Steven Bartlett?

  But you you did keep it moving, even in that moment, it seemed. It seemed like you you carried on with the work. Um, I think you were you were recommended to go and see a psychiatrist.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I went to see a psychiatrist, they put me on um Prozac. And I I started therapy. I started therapy.

• 49:54Steven Bartlett?

  But it does still appear that you kept it moving because you you kept working. You didn't seem to want to show anybody outside of your sort of inner circle.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Hell, no.

• 50:05Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 50:05Speaker 00

  Absolutely not. Because that's what we do, we keep it moving, right? And so I was like, I got the help that I need, I got a doctor and I'm on Prozac.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Right, so I'm like, okay, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and I can't let anybody know. And we're gonna keep this moving because that's what we do.

• 50:34Steven Bartlett?

  Plaster over cracks.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, we just, at that time, I'm gonna take a break because, you know, I'm having, I'm depressed. What? At that time, that seemed absolutely ridiculous.

• 50:49Steven Bartlett?

  Did you go back to Baltimore?

• 50:51Speaker 00

  I did, I went back to Baltimore, um, and, cause I was

• 50:57Speaker 00

  going to continue working, but not live in LA anymore.

• 51:02Speaker 00

  And so I bought a farmhouse. I bought a little farmhouse on,

• 51:08Speaker 00

  I wanna say it was about six acres. Like six or nine acres, if I remember correctly. And it was, um,

• 51:17Speaker 00

  I was gonna build a life there for myself, in a little quiet corner.

• 51:22Speaker 00

  And, you know, I was like, alright, I'll, if I need to audition, I'll either go to New York, or I can just fly back and forth from LA.

• 51:32Steven Bartlett?

  I heard Will was trying to hit you up at this, this point in your life.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, he hit me up, he had just, Cherie had just sent him divorce papers. And, um, he decides to call me, and of course, me not knowing anything about marriage, thinking that marriage, you know, breakup of a marriage is like breaking up with a boyfriend. He's like, you know, um, where are you? And I'm like, I'm in Baltimore, you know, renovating my house. And he's like, are you seeing anybody? And I'm like, no, he's like, good, you seeing me now? And I was like, what?

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Once again, that kind of bold, you know, approach, I was just like, oh, clutch my pearls a little bit. So he was like, you know, call me when you get back to LA. So when I got back to LA, I called him and we went out on our first date.

• 52:22Steven Bartlett?

  In and around that time, Pak had been sentenced to Rikers, right? He'd been sent, sent to jail.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  He'd been sent to, at that point in time, he was at Rikers, but then he was on his way to Dannemora.

• 52:33Steven Bartlett?

  Which is a horrific place where they send terrorists.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:36Steven Bartlett?

  Usually.

• 52:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:38Steven Bartlett?

  I think the nine eleven, some of the people that were involved with nine eleven, all the World Trade Center bombings were sent to Dannemora. Um, while he's in jail.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  While he's in jail, what do you have here?

• 52:55Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, "Now as I slip from grace and the world has turned against me. A few claim to have loved for me, but once again you show your love. After deep reflection and spiritual awakening, I have come to realize that friend, love and soulmate, was there all the time. I have not seen or felt from anywhere or anyone the intensity and loyalty that you have shown me. That is why I want to commit myself to you. I want to marry you."

• 53:23Steven Bartlett?

  He sends you that letter?

• 53:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a much longer letter than that, but that's the words that I put in the book.

• 53:31Steven Bartlett?

  A marriage proposal?

• 53:32Speaker 00

  That's why he was in Rikers. When I went to go see him at Rikers, and Rikers is actually...

• 53:41Speaker 00

  That's a really... Dannemora might be where they put terrorists.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  Rikers is like...

• 53:57Speaker 00

  I remember going to see him there and, um...

• 54:04Speaker 00

  He was in such bad shape, you know? And, um, I... Rikers, I like...

• 54:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, Rikers was...

• 54:20Speaker 00

  Bad. Dannemora, yeah, terrorists are there, but

• 54:25Speaker 00

  far more humane conditions than I would say Rikers.

• 54:34Steven Bartlett?

  It feels, it feels like the emotion is still right on the surface with you when you think back to these,

• 54:40Steven Bartlett?

  these moments in your life.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  It feels like I just came back from seeing Pac at Rikers and I had to leave him there. It's just like yesterday.

• 54:55Speaker 00

  But I'm also in a very raw place in my life right now as I'm thawing out, as I'm dismantling my defenses. You know, I call it the thaw out. So I'm in a really raw place.

• 55:08Steven Bartlett?

  Obviously, Pak was, he gets out of jail and Suge Knight, I mean, talking about timing, I think it was like a week ago or two weeks ago that someone's been convicted for Tupac's murder.

• 55:21Steven Bartlett?

  A lot of emotions.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:23Steven Bartlett?

  How did you feel when you heard about the conviction or that somebody that arrested, an arrest had been made?

• 55:34Speaker 00

  I was like, I was glad that an arrest had been made. This was someone who we had known, had been in the car. He had had done some street interviews about it, you know?

• 55:52Speaker 00

  And I was just hoping, I was like, well, I hope they're bringing him in because we're gonna get some other

• 55:59Speaker 00

  questions answered. So, you know, my hope is that we'll get more questions answered.

• 56:09Steven Bartlett?

  In the book, you question, but then you confirm that Pak Tupac knew how you felt about him when he passed away because you and him hadn't been speaking.

• 56:21Speaker 00

  No.

• 56:22Steven Bartlett?

  And I think there's a really important lesson in this for all of us.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, we had a, we had a huge fight.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Huge. It was one of the biggest fights we had ever had.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  And, um,

• 56:42Speaker 00

  and it was about how he had been living.

• 56:46Speaker 00

  You know?

• 56:48Speaker 00

  And I really,

• 56:55Speaker 00

  at that time, you know, really had to let him know my position, that I just felt like,

• 57:06Speaker 00

  you know, where he was sitting with everything was just.

• 57:16Speaker 00

  It wasn't gonna end up well.

• 57:20Speaker 00

  Right?

• 57:23Speaker 00

  And we had

• 57:28Speaker 00

  a magnanimous, I mean, it was

• 57:33Speaker 00

  just beyond the two of us, just at each other.

• 57:40Speaker 00

  And I was just like, fuck that. I'm not calling him this time. He's gonna have to call me. He was way out of line. So I really dug my heels heels in the ground in regards to like, nah.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I let my pride, I let my ego come in. I really took for granted that he would be living forever. Like, he had already survived so much, like, it never, like, I never, I, I looked at Pac as being invincible at this point. You know, because he survived so much, even so much that people don't know about, you know?

• 58:21Speaker 00

  But just like I say in the book, I'm like, man, don't do it.

• 58:27Speaker 00

  Don't do it. Don't, don't, don't hold on to like that prideful part of yourself, you know, with someone you really care about. Like, nah, I mean, you know, he gonna have to call me this time, you know, it's like, no.

• 58:43Steven Bartlett?

  Was that the last time you spoke to him?

• 58:44Speaker 00

  That was the last time I spoke to him. That was the last time I spoke to him.

• 58:51Speaker 00

  That was the last time I spoke to him. And you know what's crazy?

• 58:57Speaker 00

  It meant absolutely nothing.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  It meant absolutely nothing. And so that's the test I always have. I'm like, okay, you're in this beef with somebody.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  Will this beef matter on your deathbed?

• 59:13Speaker 00

  And then right away, I'm like, nope, let me give him a call. You know what I'm saying?

• 59:20Speaker 00

  That's my, that's my test.

• 59:25Steven Bartlett?

  Almost a year later, he gets shot in Las Vegas. You get a phone call while you're filming on set that he's from, I believe, from his mother, Mafini Shakur, and saying that he's in hospital in a coma. And a few days after that, you find out that he's passed away.

• 59:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was on my way.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  You know, Faye was like, no rush, he's gonna be fine.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  He had his fiancee there with him and his family.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  She was like, so, you know, come after your trip in New York. So I was on my way to him.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  And my girlfriend Fawn came to the door and she, I knew as soon as I saw her face that he was gone.

• 1:00:19Speaker 00

  Oh, I know that picture.

• 1:00:22Speaker 00

  Yep, that was Thanksgiving. He came to LA to spend Thanksgiving with me. And we were at one of my friend's house.

• 1:00:33Steven Bartlett?

  You look like brother and sister.

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, we look like brother and sister because that's what we were. Yeah, he came to Thanksgiving to spend Thanksgiving with me.

• 1:00:44Steven Bartlett?

  We talked about mental health earlier. Do you, do you know how to grieve someone, the loss of someone like, like that in your life?

• 1:00:50Speaker 00

  No, I'm still, I'm still

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  working out my relationship with grief. Actually.

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I haven't, I haven't really, I, I Yeah, I'm still working that out.

• 1:01:10Steven Bartlett?

  Because this chapter of your life was loss.

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm, unworn loss.

• 1:01:16Steven Bartlett?

  Chapter 12 of your book. I've got this other picture that I found that I thought was relevant.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  Oh. Now, you, do you know why this is relevant?

• 1:01:27Steven Bartlett?

  I do. Maxine and Tupac are both in that picture.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Same picture.

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  Do you have a tissue?

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  Thanks.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  You get nice hugs.

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a...

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  Sorry.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, um... I lost Maxine and Pac back to back. So, like, you know, this picture to be flanked by them.

• 1:02:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I lost them back to back.

• 1:02:57Steven Bartlett?

  Maxine was a good friend of yours.

• 1:03:01Steven Bartlett?

  Pac was your brother.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, and she was like my sister, you know? She, um... I met Maxine on Jason's Lyric. And, uh...

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  We became like super tight. And she lived in Canada, and so

• 1:03:25Speaker 00

  she wanted to come to Hollywood and make a career for herself, so I told her that she could come live with me. So she came to live with me.

• 1:03:37Speaker 00

  She, we feel as though she, um...

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  Had a misdiagnosis that she had some kind of thyroid disorder.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  That really

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  disrupted her

• 1:03:56Speaker 00

  psyche. And she ended up

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  jumping off her mother's balcony, committed, she committed suicide.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  So

• 1:04:12Speaker 00

  that was really tough.

• 1:04:17Steven Bartlett?

  It seems, it seems unimaginable that that chapter and season of your life could be filled with so much loss and so much complicated loss.

• 1:04:27Steven Bartlett?

  You know, because in all of these situations, as you write about in the book, there are reflections where you, you say in the book, if I'd, you know, you're left with this feeling, if I'd done this, I could, maybe I should have done it like this, or I wish I'd treat that situation differently. And hindsight, as we know, is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:04:45Steven Bartlett?

  You know, and I've sat here with a lot of people that have lost, a lot of people by by suicide, and they all have the same reflections.

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Steven Bartlett?

  They all have that last phone call with the person where they had to put up a boundary and

• 1:04:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:56Steven Bartlett?

  You know, I've sat here, even in L.A., in that chair with I remember Boz, um, her, her partner at the time, calling and saying, listen, if you don't come and do this, I'll jump off this bridge, and then he does.

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  It's like that existential disappointment

• 1:05:14Speaker 00

  of just life being

• 1:05:18Speaker 00

  what it is. It's like grieving that, grieving.

• 1:05:26Speaker 00

  It's like she, in a she went from this like happy

• 1:05:34Speaker 00

  person to like having this condition that just right? And so I just, sometimes I just go this is when I just have to like reconcile with God.

• 1:05:51Speaker 00

  It's like, wow, God, like, you really be doing some stuff, like, you know what I mean? And it's like and sometimes I get in grief around what life is.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  And then I have to make peace with it.

• 1:06:10Steven Bartlett?

  It feels, if we think about your story, it feels

• 1:06:16Steven Bartlett?

  confusing that God could seemingly hand someone so much. You know, wonderful career, wonderful family, all of those things, but at the same time. And maybe, maybe there's a relationship, maybe there's a relationship between the two because had you not had the, had you not come from where you came from, maybe you wouldn't have had all the wonderful things that you have, but also had you not come from where you came from, maybe you wouldn't have experienced all the loss that you've experienced. So maybe there's a relationship between the two because I've not experienced that loss, but I don't come from where you come from. So I didn't lose friends growing up.

• 1:06:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:06:51Steven Bartlett?

  I didn't lose friends in my twenties either.

• 1:06:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:06:56Speaker 00

  Having all the different experiences that I've had, as painful as some of them are, it gives me the opportunity to join people in a certain manner.

• 1:07:08Speaker 00

  You know, and in really powerful places, you know, like I have a beautiful friendship with Lauren London and she is the widow of Nipsey Hussle.

• 1:07:28Speaker 00

  And because of the loss that I went through with Pak,

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  I could reach out to her and I could go, hey,

• 1:07:43Speaker 00

  anytime you need anything, anytime you need to talk, I'm here.

• 1:07:50Speaker 00

  And Lauren's quite like me, defenses, you know what I mean? But I just kept walking closer and closer. And I just say all that to say that

• 1:08:00Speaker 00

  we've been able to meet each other in a certain place because of the type of losses we've had.

• 1:08:10Speaker 00

  That can really create beautiful connection.

• 1:08:18Speaker 00

  You feel me?

• 1:08:18Steven Bartlett?

  I feel you.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, so

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  there are blessings in pain.

• 1:08:27Speaker 00

  You just gotta, you just gotta

• 1:08:30Speaker 00

  know that to be true and wait for that door to open. You know, and that's just one, one tiny example of like the blessings that I've found in a lot of the loss that I've had in my life in general. You know?

• 1:08:48Steven Bartlett?

  There's almost a, an irony or a paradox in the fact that your pain caused a disconnection, but then the pain caused connection.

• 1:08:56Speaker 00

  Deep.

• 1:08:59Speaker 00

  Because

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  heartbreak,

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  there's this beautiful seed in heartbreak, which is like, it breaks you open.

• 1:09:12Speaker 00

  Breaks you open and you got two places that you can go. You can go into the deep wells of darkness.

• 1:09:21Speaker 00

  Or you can go into the deep wells of light.

• 1:09:25Speaker 00

  And I've been to both.

• 1:09:30Speaker 00

  And I've learned, I ain't trying to be over here no more. You know what I mean? And so I always use heartbreak, discontent, pain, to help me search for bright light.

• 1:09:47Speaker 00

  And beautiful blessings within them.

• 1:09:51Steven Bartlett?

  In the opener of the book, you, you described in the prologue, the life that the world would have seen in over the next sort of 10 years of your life before your, before you turned 40. You describe the, you know, you're super successful Hollywood actress. You've got this husband who is, you know, Will Smith, and he's a super successful Hollywood actor. You've got these kids, you've got the family, you've got the house, you've got it all.

• 1:10:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Steven Bartlett?

  Externally, you're killing the game, so internally, you must be killing the game.

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  Right, internally, you know, I was spiritually bankrupt.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:10:28Steven Bartlett?

  I find it so, I found it so interesting hearing you describe the relationship that both you and Will had as it relates to conflict resolution. I find it so interesting because I've come to learn over the last couple of years that the way we deal with conflict predicts the long term health of our relationships.

• 1:10:44Speaker 00

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 1:10:45Steven Bartlett?

  And I think there's this professor, professor, I think it's called Professor John Gottman, who studied couples and tried to figure out why they end up in divorce. And he says the number one reason is because they build contempt.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  Contempt.

• 1:10:57Steven Bartlett?

  That's all about conflict resolution, how you're dealing with your bullshit.

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:11:02Steven Bartlett?

  Now, you remind me of my partner because she wants connection, she wants to talk, she wants to resolve things. She's, you know, she wants to deal with the emotions. I would like to not.

• 1:11:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:11:14Steven Bartlett?

  I will buy you something to make sure that you're safe.

• 1:11:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:11:16Steven Bartlett?

  I'll pay for your stuff.

• 1:11:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:11:18Steven Bartlett?

  But I just want to work.

• 1:11:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:20Steven Bartlett?

  And I, and that's the way you describe Will.

• 1:11:24Steven Bartlett?

  And so I resonated with Will in, in that.

• 1:11:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:28Steven Bartlett?

  You sharing how you felt throughout that story helped me to understand my partner. And all the conversations she's had with me about what she actually wants from me.

• 1:11:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:36Steven Bartlett?

  And me misunderstanding her because we have different love languages.

• 1:11:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Steven Bartlett?

  And your love language starts when you're a kid, right?

• 1:11:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:11:45Steven Bartlett?

  And Will's does too.

• 1:11:47Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:11:49Steven Bartlett?

  What was that conflict of your love languages?

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  Will's, you know, was very much like yours. It's like, mm mm, I want to work. I'm going to work hard so that you can have everything in the world that you'd ever want. You know, I'm, you're not going to need for anything. Right? And my love language was like, but I just want you to be here with me. I don't need all of that stuff. I want to look in your eyes and, you know, feel your love and feel your protection here with me and.

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  You know, it was like that connection. I wanted to feel like I wanted to make a masterpiece out of our connection. You know, and he wanted to make a masterpiece out of, you know, the, the, the life itself. Right? And neither is wrong.

• 1:12:39Speaker 00

  Neither is wrong. And that's what I had to learn. That, that, that's where we, we've come to now in understanding. Neither one of those wants are wrong. So how do you balance them?

• 1:12:56Speaker 00

  Cause it can't be one or the other. How do we balance it? Like yin and yang. Everything about life is balance. So I just want you to know that.

• 1:13:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I just, I just want you to know that because in, in, as couples, we get into these power struggles. No, my way is right. No, my way is right. Well, if you didn't have this, you know, it gets into all of that. Right? And it's like, huh, stop.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  It's not about anybody being right or wrong.

• 1:13:31Speaker 00

  How do you get the balance of it? That's it. Right? And so, yeah. It took Will and I three decades.

• 1:13:44Steven Bartlett?

  I don't know that kind of time.

• 1:13:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, three decades, okay? Three decades. That's what will get to that will get you. It doesn't have to be that, you know? It's like, do it now.

• 1:13:59Steven Bartlett?

  Cause that's what I've said to my girlfriend is I've told her that I've got this opportunity now because things are going well in my career. So I just want to focus for now. And then we're going to have all of our lives together. I actually said that to her one day and she reminded me of it a week later when we were arguing.

• 1:14:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Steven Bartlett?

  I was like, we're gonna have all of our lives together. So like, we'll connect later.

• 1:14:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, we'll connect later. It's like, what? Kind of foolishness is that, you know what I mean? And I'm gonna tell you like this.

• 1:14:28Speaker 00

  I bet you when you're on your deathbed, you're not gonna think about

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  whatever it is you're trying to accomplish and achieve.

• 1:14:38Speaker 00

  What do you think you're gonna think about most when you're on your deathbed? How you were loved and how you loved, no?

• 1:14:45Steven Bartlett?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:14:46Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:14:47Steven Bartlett?

  And even as I said it, I thought about Tupac and how you never know how long you've got left with someone.

• 1:14:52Speaker 00

  You don't know. Why would you ever wanna wait and put that off?

• 1:14:57Steven Bartlett?

  It's an excuse though, isn't it?

• 1:14:58Speaker 00

  It is an excuse, for sure.

• 1:15:00Steven Bartlett?

  To justify my own toxic workaholism.

• 1:15:02Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I wouldn't call it toxic. I'm always careful with this word toxic that we're throwing around, right? Because we're all so wounded.

• 1:15:11Steven Bartlett?

  Exactly.

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  And it's not, listen.

• 1:15:16Speaker 00

  Intimacy makes us have to look at our shit.

• 1:15:24Speaker 00

  Right? It's easy to go, I piss you off, I got you this diamond ring, I got you this, you know, beautiful bag. I'm gonna take you on this trip. It's like, right? But like, real emotional intimacy,

• 1:15:40Speaker 00

  we gotta, we gotta deal with our stuff. A lot of stuff comes up there.

• 1:15:46Speaker 00

  But that's where, that's where connection and love and true happiness,

• 1:15:56Speaker 00

  true fulfillment is what's going on in our inner landscape.

• 1:16:01Steven Bartlett?

  You talk of this loss of identity when you married Will. And this is a quote I wrote down. "It feels like I can't grasp my own journey. At times I feel resentful and angry. I don't know what to do about it." You and Will had these two sort of different visions for happiness in your lives together. His being that he wanted to take over the world as a global, you know, movie star, all the things that he is. And within there, you start to lose yourself a little bit, it seems. This word resentful.

• 1:16:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Steven Bartlett?

  Very interesting word.

• 1:16:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:34Steven Bartlett?

  Can you give color to that word? Why you, why you chose to use that word?

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  Because it's true. You know, it was like, I felt as though at that time.

• 1:16:48Speaker 00

  All right, if, if, I mean, I, I wanna help you do all of those things. I'm here to help you with that, right?

• 1:16:59Speaker 00

  And I'm like, and in return, I should get a bit of what I want, which is connection.

• 1:17:08Speaker 00

  Right? And so you just, for me, just giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and forgiving, forgetting, well, not even forgetting, not realizing that

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  I was abandoning myself

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  in the hopes that if I just keep pouring into this, if I just keep pouring into him, if I keep pouring into his dream, I'm gonna eventually get what I want.

• 1:17:37Speaker 00

  Right? And that's a false idea in so many ways, right? But I, and so many of us do that.

• 1:17:47Speaker 00

  If Will looked back and was trying to give me whatever the hell it was I was asking for, it, it, it wouldn't, he wouldn't have been able to accomplish it anyway. Because if I'm not connected to myself, if I don't have a good relationship with me,

• 1:18:04Speaker 00

  there's nothing he can do.

• 1:18:08Speaker 00

  So I was gonna be assed out anyway, you know what I'm saying? So it's like, that's part of the journey. There's no right or wrong. Everybody's always trying to find the good guy or bad guy in people's stories. There's no good guys or bad guys. We're all wounded trying to figure this shit out.

• 1:18:24Speaker 00

  You know, and so it took me a long time to realize it is not his responsibility to make you happy. He can't.

• 1:18:36Speaker 00

  It's impossible.

• 1:18:39Speaker 00

  But it took me forever, hard-headed, stubborn, you know, because that romantic idea. And that's why I talk about checking the boxes. It's like I did everything I was supposed to do.

• 1:18:55Speaker 00

  You get to have your dream, how come I'm not having mine? And that's because Will was doing what he wanted to do.

• 1:19:02Steven Bartlett?

  He was making himself happy.

• 1:19:03Speaker 00

  He was making himself happy.

• 1:19:07Steven Bartlett?

  And he says that to you, doesn't he? He says, when you separate, he says, he wants you to go and...

• 1:19:13Speaker 00

  He's like, go, go.

• 1:19:16Steven Bartlett?

  Go make yourself happy?

• 1:19:17Speaker 00

  Go make yourself happy.

• 1:19:18Steven Bartlett?

  And how did you receive that?

• 1:19:21Speaker 00

  Not well.

• 1:19:25Speaker 00

  Not well, because, you know, there can be truth, but you know what I'm saying? It's like, how we, you know, I think it was very true, but I think at that particular point in time, I was just still really resentful. I'm just like, you know, oh, so I helped you get your happiness? Now you just going, you know, throw me to the curb? And, you know, I gotta do it all on my own now, you know? But that's the truth. I had to do it on my own, you know? Just like he did.

• 1:19:59Speaker 00

  You gotta do it on your own. You gotta do it on your own. You gotta do it on your own.

• 1:20:08Speaker 00

  And a lot of that's what this is about, and me detoxing from needing fulfillment and validation outside of myself. Detoxing from needing it from Will, my marriage, my family,

• 1:20:28Speaker 00

  a career, like I had to get to the bare bones of Jada and walk what I call the Exiled Lands. And those Exiled Lands are going into the crevices of, you know, those places within that were holding me back from myself. All the fears, all of the false information and false ideas of what life is and what a marriage is supposed to be, and, you know, who I was supposed to be, what a wife is, like, all of it.

• 1:21:04Steven Bartlett?

  Perfectionism.

• 1:21:05Speaker 00

  Perfectionism.

• 1:21:09Speaker 00

  And then I just went off to be completely imperfect and took joy in that.

• 1:21:15Steven Bartlett?

  Because being in Hollywood, I mean, this is a place that values the appearance of perfectionism. Like, everything looks perfect on the surface.

• 1:21:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think

• 1:21:26Speaker 00

  it's not a healthy idea.

• 1:21:30Speaker 00

  It's just not healthy. And it's not true. And nobody can live up to that, you know, which is why I've been dismantling that need to be perfect for myself. And that's been a painful ride, but.

• 1:21:49Steven Bartlett?

  Leading up to your fortieth birthday, which is also where the book starts. I I read the first pages of the prologue and I couldn't quite believe what I was reading. Because the place you're at in your life, this chronic state of discontent that you describe. I

• 1:22:09Steven Bartlett?

  I remember when I got to the chapter seventeen in the book, which is No Soccer Mum Here. That was the first time I had to stop reading because it was a lot, a lot for me to take.

• 1:22:19Steven Bartlett?

  Hearing that that's what was going on in your head and your mind, that's the way you viewed life. You didn't see any path forward for you.

• 1:22:26Steven Bartlett?

  You're thirty nine years old. Apparently, you know, on the surface, it seems like you've got everything that anyone would dream of having. But internally, there's this chronic state of discontent.

• 1:22:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:44Steven Bartlett?

  If I was, I often say to people, if I was a fly on the wall, but if I was a fly inside the walls.

• 1:22:51Steven Bartlett?

  What were you, what was going through your mind, thirty nine years old, about to turn forty?

• 1:22:55Speaker 00

  Oh, I was in a very, very dark place.

• 1:23:02Speaker 00

  Very dark place.

• 1:23:05Steven Bartlett?

  Just, I remember the line I read where you said, if I got to four P M. every day.

• 1:23:10Speaker 00

  I was like, I made it. I made it. And even that was like so hard. I mean, you know, I was talking to my mother this morning because she just read the book and she said, I can't believe you didn't talk about how you woke up every day crying.

• 1:23:28Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 1:23:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I was like, you know, Ma, I I just, I think it was enough to tell people that I was looking for a cliff to drive off of.

• 1:23:37Speaker 00

  You know? And what she brought up was like,

• 1:23:44Speaker 00

  she knew I was unhappy, but she didn't know why.

• 1:23:50Speaker 00

  So it wasn't that people around me didn't know that I was really unhappy.

• 1:23:57Speaker 00

  It's just that everybody believed what I believed, which is why it was so hard for me to talk about, which is like, you've got everything. What are you unhappy about?

• 1:24:07Speaker 00

  Right? And so that's how I was feeling. You've got everything. What are you unhappy about?

• 1:24:14Speaker 00

  And that was just, I had so much shame around that because I didn't understand. And even then, there wasn't a lot of conversation around mental health.

• 1:24:31Speaker 00

  And so I was just like, fuck it. I can't keep doing this. I want out.

• 1:24:40Speaker 00

  And it was just a really, really dark time.

• 1:24:44Steven Bartlett?

  When you say you were looking for a cliff to drive off of, you're not saying that theoretically or as a metaphor?

• 1:24:50Speaker 00

  I'm saying I was looking to the point where I was like, big sir, I knew exactly the route to drive.

• 1:24:59Speaker 00

  And it's this really narrow route and sometimes it gets really foggy there at night. And you, I'm not, I'm not making it out of that, out of that drop.

• 1:25:10Speaker 00

  I remember driving that one time going to Big Sur because I was looking like here like on Mulholland and I was like these drops aren't gonna like I need a drop that I'm not making it back

• 1:25:25Speaker 00

  I don't want to be disfigured I don't want I want out and I knew I had to make it look like an accident because I did not want my kids to think that I had committed suicide

• 1:25:42Speaker 00

  No, I was I was yeah, I was in a lot of pain I was in a really, really dark place and when you're in that place you just can't see your way out

• 1:25:54Speaker 00

  and you really think I really thought something was really wrong with me because

• 1:26:01Speaker 00

  what I was feeling wasn't matching

• 1:26:05Speaker 00

  the exterior of my life

• 1:26:09Speaker 00

  so I really did feel like I was just born broken

• 1:26:17Speaker 00

  and I was just wired in a way that just

• 1:26:21Steven Bartlett?

  What was the truth? If that's how you felt what was in hindsight now what do you know to be the truth of that emotion and that state of your life 39, 40 years old?

• 1:26:32Steven Bartlett?

  What was actually going on?

• 1:26:35Speaker 00

  That I really feel like that sometimes when we get into these states of

• 1:26:43Speaker 00

  wanting to die you know, for those of us who have had like suicidal thoughts and what have you sometimes it is chemical that's a different thing I think mine was more psychological something is asking to die but not you

• 1:27:01Speaker 00

  and it's a it's it's a different way of

• 1:27:07Speaker 00

  looking at things

• 1:27:10Speaker 00

  right? And so and it's it is it is an extreme shift in which I had to get out of my cycle of self hatred

• 1:27:26Speaker 00

  I was in a cycle of self hatred that I didn't even know

• 1:27:31Speaker 00

  Because we're unconscious of it.

• 1:27:34Speaker 00

  So the mind is tricking us, you know what I mean? We gotta be careful with this. This isn't as reliable as we think, you know? And so, um,

• 1:27:47Speaker 00

  but I was in a, I was in a cycle of self-hatred. And it wasn't until, thank God for my son, that I was, you know, he introduced me,

• 1:28:00Speaker 00

  his friend's father did ayahuasca, and they happened to be talking about it, and they talked to me about it. Jaden came in the kitchen, he was like, "You gotta sit down with Moises and Mateo, you gotta hear about this experience, ma, that their dad had."

• 1:28:14Steven Bartlett?

  Was Jaden saying that intentionally? Did he know that you needed that?

• 1:28:16Speaker 00

  No, he wasn't saying that intentionally.

• 1:28:18Steven Bartlett?

  He was just curious.

• 1:28:19Speaker 00

  He was just, he knows I'm curious, he knows I'm a seeker.

• 1:28:21Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 1:28:23Speaker 00

  Right? That was divine.

• 1:28:27Speaker 00

  And so I went and talked to them, and I was like, "Hey, is your dad in town?" And then their dad came, and I talked to him, and he, I was like, "I need that."

• 1:28:37Speaker 00

  And then the universe opened up a door for me to have my own ceremony for days of like intense,

• 1:28:50Speaker 00

  tense ceremony. But that's when I got to see that cycle of self-hatred. I was like, "This is you.

• 1:28:58Speaker 00

  These are your thoughts. This is how you feel about yourself. This is the problem." And so the medicine really showed me

• 1:29:08Speaker 00

  this pit

• 1:29:13Speaker 00

  of self-hatred I was in. And it helped me get out of it.

• 1:29:19Steven Bartlett?

  Chapter 20 of the book, you titled Surrender.

• 1:29:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:24Steven Bartlett?

  Surrender is an interesting word. Why is surrender so important in your journey?

• 1:29:28Speaker 00

  You have to surrender everything you think you are and everything you think you know.

• 1:29:32Steven Bartlett?

  I've spoken to a lot of people that have done Alcoholics Anonymous, and they talk about the importance of surrender.

• 1:29:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's like surrendering, you know, for me, also surrendering to a power, a higher power.

• 1:29:47Speaker 00

  And that's a constant. That's every day I have to remind myself and deepen my surrender to a power far greater than myself.

• 1:29:58Steven Bartlett?

  Chapter twenty one, the holy joke, the holy slap and the holy lessons.

• 1:30:04Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting because there's similarities between chapter nineteen and chapter twenty one in that you took a lot of the blame for situations. Chapter nineteen, the entanglement conversation.

• 1:30:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:30:18Steven Bartlett?

  Because when you watch that clip online at the at the red table, Will looks tired and he looks sad. And he says that thing, he says, I'm gonna get you back.

• 1:30:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:30:27Steven Bartlett?

  It did, it made it look like you had cheated on him or something. I had to like check the facts because if you see that clip in isolation, it looks like you cheated on Will or something, which is not what happened.

• 1:30:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:30:37Steven Bartlett?

  But you put that out anyway.

• 1:30:38Speaker 00

  I did.

• 1:30:39Steven Bartlett?

  You could have not put that out. Do you regret putting that out?

• 1:30:42Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:30:42Steven Bartlett?

  You don't?

• 1:30:43Speaker 00

  I don't.

• 1:30:45Speaker 00

  If I didn't put that out, I wouldn't have seen

• 1:30:49Speaker 00

  that next place of healing that I needed.

• 1:30:54Speaker 00

  Because I can take so much like

• 1:30:59Speaker 00

  discomfort. It wasn't until I saw how the people around me were affected. I mean, my mother, my kids, my friends, people like

• 1:31:17Speaker 00

  they were like, how could you do this? And I was like,

• 1:31:23Speaker 00

  well, I just wanted to end everything, you know? Will wasn't ready for the world to know that we weren't together and that we were living separate lives. And I just took it because I just wanted to stop. I just wanted to end. People were like, no. My mother was like, what are you? She was like, you need to get your ass in therapy. She was like, you are codependent as hell.

• 1:31:55Speaker 00

  You know? And everybody was just so, and then how people that love me so much were affected by that time. I don't think it would have penetrated and for me to really look at that part of myself.

• 1:32:14Speaker 00

  If it hadn't been for how the people around me reacted. Because I don't really care about public in that way, like most people do. I don't, whatever, because I understand the chaos and the just absurdity of all of that. But people who love me.

• 1:32:32Speaker 00

  I needed that mirror to see.

• 1:32:37Speaker 00

  That place of healing that needed to happen in me and the dynamic within myself.

• 1:32:43Steven Bartlett?

  What was that dynamic within yourself?

• 1:32:45Speaker 00

  Just like martyrdom.

• 1:32:47Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, okay, throwing yourself under the.

• 1:32:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, that martyrdom that I will.

• 1:32:52Steven Bartlett?

  Martyrdom, the holy slap.

• 1:32:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:54Steven Bartlett?

  You, you, you write about in the book how you didn't realize that Will had actually slapped Chris.

• 1:32:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:58Steven Bartlett?

  Until much later, you thought it, you suspected maybe it was a skit or a joke.

• 1:33:02Speaker 00

  I thought it was a skit and then I realized it wasn't, but I didn't think that he actually made contact with Chris. Looked like he ducked it.

• 1:33:09Steven Bartlett?

  Social media grabbed onto this eye roll.

• 1:33:11Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:12Steven Bartlett?

  And they, um, social media believed that that eye roll was some kind of like, go get him, Will.

• 1:33:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, and even if it was, it was like, I can't force Will to do anything.

• 1:33:23Steven Bartlett?

  And you and Will weren't together.

• 1:33:25Speaker 00

  We weren't together as, you know, we were family. I was there with him as family, but we weren't together at that time.

• 1:33:34Steven Bartlett?

  Were you surprised by the reaction and to that moment, both for you, but also for Will?

• 1:33:42Speaker 00

  Yes and no. I was surprised at how much, I knew I was gonna get blamed, but like, I didn't think that it was gonna be. I, I mean, it was insane, you know, it was like, wow.

• 1:33:57Speaker 00

  But I knew, I knew we were, I knew it was gonna be a storm.

• 1:34:01Steven Bartlett?

  In the book, you say, protection is your love language.

• 1:34:03Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:04Steven Bartlett?

  He protected you, didn't he?

• 1:34:07Speaker 00

  Um.

• 1:34:07Steven Bartlett?

  Did you see that as a act of love?

• 1:34:12Speaker 00

  You know, it's a really complicated moment.

• 1:34:17Speaker 00

  It's a really complex moment. I would say yes and no in a certain manner, you know?

• 1:34:26Speaker 00

  But I definitely think in his way.

• 1:34:30Speaker 00

  But it was, it was so much more, it wasn't about me. That's why it's complex, right? It's like, it was about a lot more than just.

• 1:34:42Speaker 00

  That moment, a lot more than just me. That's what I know. You know what I mean?

• 1:34:47Steven Bartlett?

  Because you know well, and you know where he's come from.

• 1:34:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I, there was a lot that was stirring up for him at that time because of emancipation. And he and Chris have their own history.

• 1:34:59Steven Bartlett?

  Going back to the eighties.

• 1:35:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, going back to the eighties, and it's a deep one.

• 1:35:05Steven Bartlett?

  Jada, thank you. Thank you for writing this book because it's, it's not until we understand people's context that we understand them. And when we understand them, we realize that they are just so much like us.

• 1:35:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:35:18Steven Bartlett?

  In the wounded, the imperfect, the survival, the defense, and all of those things. And that's exactly what I got from reading Worthy. But also, as I said to you, I think before we started recording, there were so many moments in there that acted as the advice that no one around me could have given me because they've not walked in those stairs. You, you act as an elder to me in the book because you, you've helped me to figure out and shine a light on a certain area of my behavior, which comes from maybe a wound that I have that is going to hold me back and lead me to a place I don't want to go to.

• 1:35:52Speaker 00

  I promise you, yes.

• 1:35:53Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, exactly. And you're right, you should use the word breadcrumbs, but that's exactly what the book is. It's these, these, it's your story, but throughout your story, you leave these little nuggets of wisdom and lessons that will guide those that read the book to a better place in their own lives. And they can subjectively define what that better place is. But the wisdom is enduring because the wisdom is human and it's true. So there's something in there for everybody. It's one of the best books I've ever read because of the, the writing style, the vividness. I, I felt like I was in your grandmother's garden. I felt like I was there at all of the key moments. When, when you have what I described, what I thought was a panic attack on the highway and those moments, the moments of sadness. The vividness of the writing is so, is so profound, but the vulnerability of the book is the most impressive thing.

• 1:36:38Steven Bartlett?

  It's easy not to be vulnerable. It's easy to paint a narrative that is self-serving, but that's not what you do here. You seem to be in the pursuit of the truth. And that's exactly what I take away from this book. So thank you so much, Jada.

• 1:36:50Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thank you for creating a safe space at your. Gray table.

• 1:36:57Speaker 00

  And for holding my tears today. I appreciate that. Thank you.