Let Jada speak her truth
OPINION: A lot of people are asking why is Jada Pinkett Smith oversharing but she just pubbed her memoir
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I feel like the Black community’s main response to Jada Pinkett Smith’s many, many recent revelations has been, “Take me out the group chat.” People are like, “Why she out here telling all her business? No one asked!” But, nah, you guys. I gotta push back against all that. Since when are we ok with telling a Black woman to shut up about her truth?
Pinkett Smith wrote her memoir, and in doing so she went deep into herself and pulled out the stories people would want to hear from her. Knowing and loving Tupac. Meeting Will. Struggling in her marriage to Will. Deciding to change their marriage. Dealing with the Oscars. Jada is spilling her tea because that’s what you do when you do your memoir. We’ve seen this before.
Is your issue that Pinkett Smith told her story too much? Like she did too many interviews promoting her book? I’m sure Pinkett Smith commanded a hefty fee for her book, and when the book publisher gives you a lot they demand a lot, which means you’ve gotta dig deep and tell your best stories and then promote the book like crazy.
After her blitz of interviews, everyone in the world knows this book exists. Garnering that level of attention for a book is really hard nowadays. But more than that, Pinkett Smith appears to have made sure that she told her story to as many Black media figures as possible, including Hoda Kotb and Jonathan Capehart. They’ve been successful for a while, but it’s still valuable for them to get a lot of eyeballs on something they’ve done, and any interview with Pinkett Smith is going to be popular right now. The fact that her interview schedule includes plenty of Black people was intentional. She’s taken her rooting-for-everybody-Black approach into her media strategy for the book.
Pinkett Smith also gave me a chance. Her people emailed me about two months ago and asked if I wanted to interview her for my podcast, “Toure Show.” I was like what??? I’ve had a lot of great guests on the podcast, but she’s still one of the highest-profile Hollywood stars I’ve ever had. But now I see that they were being proactive in making sure that lots of Black media folks got a chance to talk to her, which I appreciate. That’s Black nationalism and sisterhood in action.
They sent me her book, “Worthy,” five days before our interview. I thought, “Ok there’s not enough time for me to read this whole book so I’ll skim it.” Right away I jumped to the stuff about the Oscars and then leapt back to read about Tupac. I lived through Pac’s heyday, and I interviewed him, and I wrote about him. So, hearing more of his life story was fascinating. Pinkett Smith says at one point in Pac’s teenage years in Baltimore he was homeless. I found her memories of his youth to be an interesting addition to what we know about this incredibly important figure in hip-hop culture. But then, within talking about Pac, Pinkett Smith talked about being in the streets of Baltimore dealing drugs and dreaming of becoming a “queenpin.” That’s the word she uses. So then I had to go back to read all about that. Next thing you know, I read the whole book.
“Worthy” doesn’t strike me as gossipy or beneath Pinkett Smith. It’s her telling us her life story. Just this week we have leaks from Britney Spears’s new memoir, including a part where she talks about her first time with Justin Timberlake. She says “Ok, I’m ready. Put it in.” He replies, “It is already in.” She says, “My world collapsed.” But people are not rushing to the comments to say, “Stop oversharing, Britney! Take me out the group chat, Britney!”
I don’t get it. Pinkett Smith has been close to two of the biggest figures in modern pop culture and she’s written a book about her life with both of them which deepens our understanding of who they are a little, and folks are like, “Girl, stop talking.” I liked “Worthy,” and I think Pinkett Smith has every right to tell her story.
Touré is a host and Creative Director at theGrio. He is the host of Masters of the Game on theGrioTV. He is also the host and creator of the docuseries podcast “Being Black: The ’80s” and the animated show “Star Stories with Toure” which you can find at TheGrio.com/starstories. He is also the host of the podcast “Toure Show” and the podcast docuseries “Who Was Prince?” He is the author of eight books including the Prince biography Nothing Compares 2 U and the ebook The Ivy League Counterfeiter.
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