Here’s a thought. Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have been married for 18 years, with little drama surfacing, no social media fights, no drama with boxers and with only working together once. OK, there was that time they were supposedly getting divorced and almost broke the Internet, and the persistent gay/swinging rumors. But for 18 years together in Hollywood, that’s practically normal.
Maybe they have some good advice for some of the other celebrity couples splitting, soon to be divorcing or rumored to be divorcing. Yes, we’re talking to you, Keyshia Cole and Daniel “Boobie”Gibson, Tiny and T.I. and Jay-Z and Beyonce. In a new interview with net-a-porter’s magazine The Edit, Pinkett drops some gems on why her marriage has lasted, why raising her kids the way she does is fine and what she and Will think about all the rumors.
Here are some highlights:
On Marriage:
We used to have all these rules, [but] as you go on in your relationship, you just get into a flow,” she says. “The thing I love is being in a place where it’s just like, Will, to me, encompasses everything. It’s almost as if calling him ‘my husband’ is too small of a word for what he means in my life — and especially how I feel we, as women, identify the idea of a husband. I really had to mature and expand that. I think I had a very stuck idea of what a husband looks like, what a wife should be. Once I broke all of that, a whole new world opened for me and man, oh, man, I got to see him in all his glory. And so that’s what it’s evolved into. And I’m just ecstatic about it.”
On Rumors:
Love Black America Web? Get more! Join the Black America Web Newsletter
We care about your data. See our privacy policy.
The coping technique is knowing what the truth is – there’s no better technique. When you know that what’s going on in your house is so the opposite [of what’s being said], and you also know that when there’s mystery, people fill in the gaps, that’s OK,” she says. “And then you look back at it and look at how creative people can be, and it’s kind of entertaining. We can laugh because it’s so ridiculous. But I get it. I don’t take it personally.”
On Being A Woman Today:
It’s really tough. I feel like the connection to the value of women on a bigger scale has decreased tremendously. Even though you look and go, ‘Women have so many opportunities,’ it’s like, ‘Yeah, but at what cost?’ Are women valued for being women, or are women valued when they have more masculine qualities? Men and women encompass both female and masculine energies, but it seems like when the feminine is present, it’s not respected.”
On Raising Kids:
I want my kids to be happy and I want them to be themselves. I was saying to a friend the other day, ‘Remember, our kids are not us.’ They’re not. Sometimes we’re trying to fix things that happened to us or projecting [onto them], and that’s a terrible, terrible trap.”
(Photo: The Edit magazine)
Like BlackAmericaWeb.com on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
