Ordinarily I report on things like local news and politics, but I was listening to satellite radio last Wednesday and ran across Jada Pinkett Smith being interviewed by Howard Stern. I stopped because Will and Jada Pinkett Smith are kind of like, well, the Huxtables, right? At least so far as the public knows (I’m not taking about the occasional rumor that most of us don’t give more than two seconds of consideration.) Will and Jada have always seemed somehow to embody the spirit of family, and their children seemed to have grown up well-adjusted as a result. But what do we know?So, as soon as I knew it was Jada I stopped to listen in.Jada was taking about how she had probably gotten married too young at the age of 25, and I knew then there was trouble in Paradise. She has advised her children to wait a little longer before taking the plunge, and that says she’s not as happy as I’d have expected her to be, but, hey, doesn’t every marriage have its ups and downs? Especially one that lasts longer than an ice cold shower?
It’s like she said:
“Can you imagine taking that road together from 25 to 44? You got to be strong, it takes work.”
Howard asked her about some comments she made on Oprah’s show years ago about having an open marriage, and my jaw dropped. Say what? I don’t have any statistics or anything, but open marriages are not a typically black family phenomenon, if you know what I mean. I’d be willing to bet a filet mignon that 9 out of 10 black couples would look at you like you had two heads if you suggested anything close to either of them sleeping with other people and asking the other one being okay with it.
I know Will has got to be tempted 24/7 with all the starlets and wanna-be-in-a-relationship-with-a-leading-man-megastar hotties he encounters every day, but the Fresh Prince was sent to Bel-Aire to make his mark on the town– not the other way around. Maybe we expect too much.
What Pinkett said was meant for both those looking in and trying to judge the couple’s relationship– and for Will: “I trust that the man that Will is, is a man of integrity, so he’s got all the freedom in the world and as along as Will can look himself in the mirror and be okay, I’m good.”
Translation: she’s not down with any open marriage, but he’s hinted at it. He knows how she feels, so she’s trusting him to respect her enough to be the man she married and not start sleeping around under the pretense that the have some open relationship.
She added: “You got to trust who you’re with, and at the end of the day, I don’t want to be anybody’s watcher. I’m not his watcher. He’s a grown man.”
It’s a wonder how any marriage lasts in Hollywood, with all the steamy love scenes and naked encounters actors and actresses have– where directors are pushing for as much realism as they can get in every take. It’s got to suck for Jada, ’cause I don’t see her taking roles that require her to do love scenes.
“It can [suck] sometimes,” she said, “if you’re not clear about where your man is. But when you can look in your man’s eyes and you know that he’s holding you down and that he loves you . . . . Here’s what’s real– I’m not the kind of woman that believes that a man’s not gonna be attracted to other women, I’m just not that girl, it’s not realistic. [But] just because your man is attracted to another woman it does not mean he doesn’t love you and it doesn’t mean he’s gonna act on it.”
And how about these parting words of wisdom, “if your man can’t see another woman’s beauty, how in the hell is he going to see yours?”
Hey, Will, that Jada is a keeper! Just in case you ain’t know. (A little insider slang for the in crowd)
