Jada Pinkett-Smith reveals there was a point when her marriage to Will Smith wasn’t a happy one in her upcoming memoir, “Worthy.”
Smith, 52, admitted to suffering from depression, and pointed out that despite the outward appearance that she “had it all,” she was actually suffering and unhappy in her life and marriage, according to an excerpt from “Worthy” shared by People on Friday.
She recognized that, to fans, it appeared she was living the dream with “the beautiful family, the superstar husband, the lavish lifestyle, fame and fortune” — but “[f]or two decades, I had been putting on a good face, going with the flow, telling everyone I was okay.”
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Smith unpacked the depths of her struggle and unhappiness.
“I was slammed by the reality that I’d been checking off boxes meant to define being enough to deserve ‘having it all.’ … Those boxes I’d been checking had not delivered the gifts that had been promised.”
She explained how much of her life involved simply going through the motions as part of the facade.
“I followed the rules … the rules we’re told to follow. You work hard, make sacrifices for those you love. The rules tell you: Be a doting mother and a doting wife, do the work required, and life turns into paradise,” she writes.
“‘On paper,’ it all looked grand.” (RELATED: Will Smith And His Wife Reveal They’re ‘Committing To Therapy’ To Salvage Their Marriage)
“NOPE. A loving relationship, harmony, peace … that happiness had yet to be delivered,” she writes.
She burst the perception she’d been living in a Hollywood bubble and revealed she and Will Smith were struggling in their marriage at the time.
“Adding to my distress, Will and I weren’t in a good place and hadn’t been for a while. I couldn’t make it right no matter how hard I tried. We couldn’t hear or see each other — at all. Confiding in my close friends seemed unfair to them and to Will and me.”
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“[B]y Thanksgiving, I’d fallen into despair and wanted to be on this earth less and less. This was not living.”
“Unwelcome feelings – of not deserving love – made it harder to understand the disconnect between the so-called perfect life I had achieved and the well of loss I carried with me,” Smith writes.