Jada Pinkett Smith’s new memoir, Worthy, is full of several shocking revelations. The star discusses her stint as a drug dealer in Baltimore, being separated from husband Will Smith for the last six years and the special connection she had with Tupac Shakur.
In the book, Jada also reveals that the late rapper proposed to her while serving time in prison. The Root asked the actress her thoughts on critics who may not understand the relationship she had with Tupac.
“I’d say if you’ve never had a friendship like that, it’s a hard one to understand. It really is. Everybody leaves out nuances. Everybody thinks everything’s so black and white all the time,” she states.
Jada adds:
“It’s like ‘Oh, how could they have been that close and there not been a romantic dynamic between them?’ But the truth of the matter is there wasn’t and we just had a really special connection and friendship that there is no real word for. People are like ‘Nah, that feels like more than a friendship so it had to be this and that.’ People [are] always trying to find those titles so that they can understand what something is–and I totally, totally get it. Pac and I… we couldn’t understand it at times, you know, until we resolved that it just was what it was.”
Revealing Tupac’s marriage proposal in Worthy was a tidbit Jada wasn’t sure about adding, but knows it was important for her to be as truthful as possible. “At first, I wasn’t gonna include it,” she says.
“But what I didn’t want to happen was that I didn’t include it and really explain it and then it come out later…and then here we go with people being like ‘See! She didn’t tell the truth!’ So I wanted to explain and put it in context–like he was in Rikers and I had always been a constant in his life.”
Jada also believes that vulnerability played a huge part in the proposal.
“I don’t think people will necessarily understand what it meant for him to be at Rikers. He was in a fragile state, so he was grabbing for that which he felt was stable, you know?” Jada remarks.
“And I promise you, the moment he walked out of the gates of that jail, he would’ve divorced my ass. He didn’t want me as a wife–that I knew. We got to that…he understood that.”
Worthy is out now.