Who is Jada Pinkett Smith? She is more than simply a renowned actor’s wife. Jada is a woman who has faced several challenges in her quest to reach the stars.
Jada Pinkett Smith began her acting career in the American comedy series A Different World, where she played Lena James’s character in a supporting role. She has appeared in several popular films throughout her career, including Menace II Society, The Matrix Revolutions, and Magic Mike XXL.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s Early Years
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 18, 1971, Jada Koren Pinkett’s mother named her after her mother’s favorite soap actress Jada Rowland.
The name Pinkett Smith is from her mother’s side of Jamaican and Bajan descent and her father’s side of African-American descent. Jada Pinkett Smith’s Zodiac is a Virgo.
In her high school year, Jada Pinkett’s mother, Adrienne Banfield Norris, became pregnant. However, she and her husband, Robson Pinkett Jr., eventually divorced after a few months. This is why her childhood mainly consisted of her being taken care of by her mother along with the support of her grandmother, Marion Martin Banfield.
Marion started to take notice of Jada Pinkett’s interest in the performing arts. Her grandmother enrolled her in tap dance, piano, and ballet lessons to enhance her skills and abilities as she started growing up.
Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur became friends when she first attended the Baltimore School for the Arts. She graduated in 1989 with a degree in dance and theatre.
After Jada Pinkett ended her time attending the North Carolina School of Arts, she moved to Los Angeles. Her family friend, LaVern Whitt, introduced her to several business prospects to start her acting career.Â
Jada Pinkett Smith’s TV Career
Jada Pinkett’s first appearance in the early years of her acting career was in an episode of the American comedy series True Colors that aired from 1990 to 1992.
After this, she did a couple of guest roles for various tv shows, including Doogie Howser and 21 Jump Street.
Eventually, she earned an important part in A Different World, directed by the comedy king director Bill Cosby.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s Movie Career
Jada Pinkett Smith’s movie career started taking off throughout the next few years, with her appearing in the 1993 movie Menace II Society. This led her to more featured roles in The Nutty Professor, Set it Off, Scream2, and Return to Paradise.
She also appeared in Spike Lee’s controversial Bamboozled in 2002. A few years later, in 2003, she got a prominent role in The Matrix Reloaded and its sequel, The Matrix Revolutions. Both films were a massive success in her career.
In 2005, she was the voice actor for Gloria, the hippopotamus in Madagascar, an animated comedy film. It received two sequels in which Jada Pinkett Smith continued to voice Gloria.
In 2008, she made her directional debut by directing the movie The Human Contract. She continued to play the lead role in the medical drama series Hawthorne, for which she was nominated for the NAACP Image Award and Prism Award.
Other Jada Pinkett Smith movies include Magic Mike XXL and Bad Moms.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s Podcast
In 2018, Jada Pinkett Smith started Red Table Talks, where Jada, her daughter, and her mother opened their home for conversations centered around cultural and social issues.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s Music Career
Jada Pinkett Smith formed a metal band named Wicked Wisdom in 2002 under Jada Koren. The band featured Jada as the lead vocalist, Pocket Honore was in guitar and vocals, Cameron Wiem Graves on guitar and keyboard, and Rio was on bass.
Their managers were James Lassiter and Miguel Melendez, who also worked in Overbook Entertainment, a company co-founded by Will Smith.
Their debut album was released on February 21, 2006, by Jada’s production company, 100% Womon, and Suburban Noize Records. Will remained as the project’s executive producer to support his wife.
The album was able to make it to the Billboards Top Heatseekers chart. It peaked at number 44 during the week of March 11, 2006.
Other Ventures
Entreprenueral
In 1994, Jada Pinkett opened her fashion label, Maja. The clothing line displayed women’s dresses and shirts supporting the phrase ‘Sister Power.’ These clothing items were sold primarily through small catalogs.
In 2004, Jada also published a children’s book named Girls Hold Up This World. She claimed that she wrote the book for Willow Smith, her friends, and other girls living in this masculine world. She wanted to capture the diverse elements of feminity and let women know they were more powerful than anything.
Jada Pinkett Smith was one of the rare few celebrities who came on board to invest $10 million and be a part of a line of beauty products launched by Lisa Price’s Carol’s Daughter. She backed her up by becoming a spokesperson for the cosmetics brand and expressing her pride in being a part of another African American woman’s dream.
The Smith couple became the founding investors of an energy storage company in 2015.
Philanthropy
Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband established the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland. This was a nonprofit that concentrated mainly on inner metropolitan cities and provided assistance to the families that lived there.
YouthBuild was one of the nonprofit groups that received funding from their foundation. Jada contributed privately to other charities, such as Capital K-9s.
Jada donated $1 million to her high school, the Baltimore School for the Arts. She dedicated the theatre to her previous classmate and good friend, Tupac Shakur.
In 2012, she submitted a letter on behalf of PETA to Baltimore’s mayor. She stated that the visiting Ringling Brothers Circus abided by Baltimore’s prohibition on the use of bullhooks and did not damage any elephants.
In 2013, she also appeared in a video clip for Gucci’s “Time for Change.” This campaign raised money and awareness for women’s issues around the world.
Jada Pinkett’s Family
Jada Pinkett Smith auditioned for a role on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a popular television sitcom. Despite the fact that she was deemed too short for the role and actress Nia Long was chosen instead, she was able to meet her future husband, Will Smith.
Will had feelings for Jada but didn’t act on them until he divorced Sheree Fletcher and began dating Jada. Jada Pinkett Smith eventually moved to California from Baltimore to be closer to him.
On December 31, 1997, Jada became pregnant. She got married in her hometown of Baltimore, with 100 guests at the wedding. Jada concluded that she and Will were very private people and that she did not plan to let her career bring problems to their marriage.
Jada and Will have two children. Their son, Jaden Smith, was born in 1998, and their daughter, Willow Smith, was born in 2000. Jada is also a stepmother to her husband’s son from his previous marriage, Trey Smith.
Will Smith believes that their parenting style is not that strict. But he understands that to guide your children properly, sometimes strictness can play a positive role.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s house is a 27,000 square foot building where her family resides in Malibu on 100 acres.
Did Jada Pinkett Smith Cheat on Will?
In 2020, Jaden Smith’s close friend August Alsina, a rapper and singer, stated that he and Jada Pinkett Smith had been romantically involved in adultery in 2016. The rapper was just 23 years old, while Jada was 44.
While many people wondered why Jada would cheat on Will, the rapper claimed that the affair took place with Will Smith’s permission. However, the spokesperson for Jada denied these claims entirely.
Jada confirmed to Will Smith that she had an entanglement during a Red Table Talk episode. She claimed to have had the relationship during their separation, although without his permission.
Jada said that Alsina misunderstood the situation. She went back to Will after things ended with Alsina. After Jada’s use of the word ‘entanglement,’ Alsina continued to release a collaboration with Rick Ross titled “Entanglements.”
In 2021, rumors of Will and Jada being in an open marriage started surfacing. Will stated that ‘he and Jada had never believed in a conventional marriage.’ He meant that they both had sexual relationships outside their marriage.Â
2022 Oscar Controversy
Jada found herself in another controversy during the 2022 Oscars. Comedian Chris Rock mad an unconventional joke about Jada’s shaved head, saying that she looked like ‘G.I. Jane.’ Will Smith then got up on stage and slapped Chris Rock, in addition to hurling names and expletives his way.
After this controversy, many individuals on social media initially wondered, ‘why did Jada Pinkett Smith cut her hair in the first place?’ Most of them did not realize that Jada Pinkett Smith has been suffering from alopecia, which causes hair loss, since 2018.
Everyone online has been divided into two groups. Some are either in support of Chris, claiming it was just a harmless joke. Others support Jada and sympathize with her situation, as she has been quite vocal about her familiarity with alopecia and how it has disturbed her life.
She revealed her diagnosis publicly, a disease that has no cure. On her show Red Table Talk, she mentioned how she started getting terrified once there were noticeable ‘handfuls of hair’ that she was losing in the shower.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s Net Income
Following the Oscars dispute, many people want to know the net income of Jada Smith. According to Celebrity Net Worth, her net income is $50 million.
