Jada Pinkett Smith Gets Candid About Her Career And How Her Children Inspire Her

Jada Pinkett Smith accepted the Trailblazer Award at the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards, yet she is well aware that she wasn’t blazing trails on her own. In the latest episode of “Personal Space,” Pinkett Smith welcomed MTV News correspondent Josh Horowitz into her house to mirror on her groundbreaking career, how she’s giving back, and what she’s learning from younger generations.


“I knew that I was gonna create something different for myself than where I grew up and why I grew up, yet this certainly exceeded my vision,” Pinkett Smith mentioned, recalling the span of environments she noticed herself in as a child in Baltimore, from her grandmother’s Black middle class neighborhood, to her residence with her single mom “in the trenches,” mixed in with her art school education. Finding herself among the adversity was essential to her journey. “It was a lot of different worlds that I had to learn to navigate, thus and you also really have to know who you are categorize in attempt to navigate all those different worlds successfully.”


It wasn’t habitually easy — “Some of the stuff I was confronted with as a teenager, I should not be here now,” she mentioned — although fortunately, she had some people on her side. Her teachers at Baltimore School for the Arts “who kept reminding me that there was more that I may have for my life than the streets,” and her mother, who “really, out of anybody, just considered that I might do what I’m doing right now,” were instrumental in setting her on her path.


And any time if she got to where she was going, it was Tupac who lifted her up enough to reach her first big break with Menace II Society. The late rapper introduced her to directors Allen and Albert Hughes and absolutely insisted she take the role she was planned, even soon after he had a falling out with the filmmakers. “I was like, ‘Well, if you’re not doing it, I’m not doing it,’ and he’s like, ‘Nope. Not playing that game. You have to do this film,’” she remembered.


From there, one possibility led to another, and piece by piece, Pinkett Smith built herself the sort of life that allowed her to push boundaries. Most recently, she’s done that with her wildly successful Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk, in which she sits around a red table and talks to her mom, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, her daughter, Willow, plus a rotating cast of visitors about what’s really going on. “When people have been really courageous enough to tell me the real — the real — story, what it’s done for my life; some of these stories helped me save my relationship with Will, some of these stories prevented me from making some of the largest mistakes with my children,” she mentioned. “That’s what life’s about, us being able to gift each other in that way through our experiences. So if I will help your experience be a little bit far less of a struggle than mine, why not?”


However she’s not just here to give — she’s also here to learn. Especially from her step-son Trey, son Jaden, and Willow, who help teach her “what needs to be important” to us as people in society and on Earth. “Willow, Jaden, and Trey are very sensitive to what is happening to our planet and what is happening as far as our educational system, jail systems,” she mentioned. “They keep me up to pace of a more modern understanding of social issues why as well as how to reach people in a modern way.”


Her willingness listen to what younger generations are saying is what permits Pinkett Smith to continue to be the trailblazing force she is. She is aware that she alone doesn’t have all of the answers, and thus she combines her expertise with that of others categorize in attempt to clear the path ahead.


For more from Pinkett Smith, watch the complete interview above.