Jada Pinkett Smith's Memoir Sets Record Straight On Tupac

Jada Pinkett Smith has been in the headlines for the last week leading up to the release of her memoir Worthy this Tuesday, Oct. 17.

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Bombshells revealed in Pinkett Smith’s book include the disclosure that she and Will Smith have been separated since 2016, her debilitating battle with depression and transparency around her relationship with the late rapper and actor Tupac Shakur. In an interview with BOSSIP Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden, Jada opened up about her motivation behind penning her memoir, advice she got from Will and the reason she believed a marriage between her and Pac would never have worked.

While critics of Pinkett Smith have accused her of humiliating her husband, Will definitely wasn’t blindsided by any of her revelations.

“Will read the whole book,” Pinkett-Smith told BOSSIP. “He was probably, he was one of the first people to read the whole book. My daughter is reading it now. MC Lyte, she’s reading it. I’ve given it to [Queen] Latifah to read. My girlfriend Toni Braxton, she’s read it, a couple of my business partners have read it. Trey and Jaden haven’t read it yet, but my mother is reading it now, but she read all of her parts before I even turned it in.”

In fact, Jada told us that Will’s experience penning his own bestselling memoir, Will, in 2021 made him one of her greatest allies in her book writing experience.

“He just helped me understand the psychological process of it all,” Jada told BOSSIP. “He just put me on game in regards to the benefits of writing the book and then, kind of the sticky areas. He’s like, ‘You’re gonna be really emotional. Going back is not always easy.'”

In Worthy, Jada offers more insight and perspective on some of her most publicly scrutinized moments, like her “entanglement” with August Alsina and her reactions to the 2022 Academy Awards moment where Chris Rock joked about her hair and was then slapped by Will during the televised broadcast. She even sets the record straight on past rumors that she and Will were swingers or beards and makes it clear that Alsina was not her son’s best friend, as it was reported in some places. However, Jada told us that setting the record straight was never her motivation for writing Worthy.

“That’s not why I wrote the book,” Pinkett Smith told BOSSIP. “I knew that within the book, in order to tell my story that would be part of it, because I was like ‘if you were an outsider reading a story about Jada, like if you didn’t mention certain things, I would be disappointed as a reader.’ I had to step outside of myself. I was like, ‘you probably should address that,’ but it wasn’t necessary to set the record straight. It was more so like, if you’re going to share your story with the public, there’s just certain things that you got to give people what they’re looking to know. That’s just part of it.”

Interestingly enough, Jada told us that the most difficult part of writing Worthy wasn’t revisiting her lowest points, reliving her depression, the traumatic loss of friends and family members or the challenges of navigating the high pressures of a Hollywood marriage. Pinkett Smith says she became most emotional writing about her family matriarchs and thinking about their journeys with a newfound perspective.

“Thinking about my grandparents, my grandmothers, Shirley and Marion and my great-grandmother, thinking of their journeys as a woman now,” Jada recalls, referring one moment in the book where her paternal grandmother refuses to enable her drug-addicted son, Jada’s father. “I remember getting really emotional thinking about my grandmother putting that paper bag of food on the porch for her son.”

“Going back in time like that was a really tough moment for me because I was like, ‘What if that was Jaden?'” Jada continued. “It really broke my heart because I was so unaware as a child of what burden she was dealing with right there in front of me and then really learning how I got some of my behaviors to just keep it moving. She had to keep it moving. She had to come back to the table, act like she was unaffected and keep it moving. I know that broke her heart to have to do that.”

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“Just thinking about some of what the women before me had to go through and as a woman now, recognizing what toll it took, what strength you know they carried, that flows my way and the sacrifices they made for me to be to be able to do what I do. So it was one of the tough parts of writing the book. There were plenty of tough parts. The whole book itself is going into the murkiness of lack of self-worth, so it’s just raw!”

Keep reading for more from our exclusive Worthy interview with Jada Pinkett Smith

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While many of the headlines about Pinkett Smith in the last week have focused on her marriage to and separation from Will Smith, Tupac fans have also had a lot to say about Jada’s book. Interestingly, the actress says she actually hoped her memoir would make it clear once and for all that her relationship with Tupac was always only a friendship and nothing more.

“I will say one of the records I am glad to set straight is the fact that Pac and I were friends,” Pinkett Smith told us in our interview. “I think that people will have a better understanding of what our relationship was from this book, that is one record I’m glad to set straight.”

While her intention was to set the record straight, a number of pre-release interviews focused on Pinkett Smith detailing how Tupac proposed to her in a 1995 letter dated Feb. 2 or 3. While the book describes how he even called Jada’s mom Adrienne to ask for her blessing, Jada told BOSSIP that she never seriously considered accepting his proposal.

“That’s why I tried to really explain what his condition was at Rikers, because that was really, that was just more about him needing a tether,” Pinkett-Smith explained to BOSSIP. “I promise you, if we had gotten married, as soon as he walked out the gates of that jail, he would’ve divorced my a** so quick! He didn’t want me as a wife. That’s for damn sure. He just he needed somebody he could depend on to get him through that jail time, which I understood and we definitely came to an understanding around that.”

Tupac has also been back in the news outside of Pinkett Smith, thanks to a recent arrest in his 1996 murder.

“That day of the arrest wasn’t easy,” Jada recalls. “This person has always said that they were in the car during that night and I’m just hoping that we’ll get more answers.”

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Although Jada’s bombshell Today show interview hadn’t yet aired when we spoke, we asked the actress if she was bracing herself for some inevitable backlash from her disclosures.

“Honestly what else could people possibly say at this point?” Pinkett Smith questioned. “That’s part of the reason why I had the confidence to just tell my story, because I’m like, ‘OK what else can people say?’ I’m still breathing. My heart is still beating. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been. People are gonna say what they’re gonna say. I put my heart and soul into this book with really beautiful intention and I know that to be true and however anybody else takes to it is really not my business. People who get my intention will get it and people who don’t, won’t. All of it’s welcome.”

Jada also described her and Will Smith’s relationship as “fantastic,” when we asked her about their current status.

“It’s been fantastic,” Pinkett Smith said. “We’re in a really beautiful place. We are doing a lot of healing together and also doing our individual work and things are really good.”

Bigger than just her and Will’s marriage, Jada told us that she hoped her admissions both in and around Worthy would help others have a healthier perspective on relationships.

“My whole thing is really just trying to dismantle all the romanticism around relationships and people just understanding that relationships are about work,” Pinkett Smith said. “Specifically for the African American community and all the woundedness that we as Black women have, as our Black men have, you know our circumstances and how we have to work together and some of the things that we gotta help each other get through together. Sometimes it’s extreme. But that relationship is a holy path — to get to love, to get to that authentic love and sometimes it’s some stormy weather until we get to that place.”

Jada Pinkett Smith’s memoir Worthy is available now.