‘Worthy’: Of Jada’s memoirs and mental health

“For two decades, I had been putting on a good face, going with the flow, telling everyone I was okay. Yet underneath, bouts of depression… had smoldered… Unwelcome feelings… 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. I would later be diagnosed… that I suffer from complex trauma with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)… I had sought help everywhere... Will and I weren’t in a good place and hadn’t been for a while… We couldn’t hear or see each other — at all… I’d fallen into despair and wanted to be on this earth less and less… Suicidal thoughts were not completely new to me,” so writes Jada Pinkett Smith in her new memoirs entitled Worthy.

She boldly faces her own ghosts — her own sort of “afflicted existence” — a life that cannot be Photoshopped away and that’s less glamourous like photos that lose their soul once scanned. Like the way poems lose a certain inflection when translated from one language to another — as she spins for us a tale of human need and longing, of depression, of loss, and of hope.

In her memoirs, Jada Smith, the renown American actress and wife to Hollywood megastar Will Smith, is like the release of clouds and rain, the taste of the ecstasy that poets write about — modern and unbound, she is as unfettered as a rampaging bull — moving fast and breaking things.

According to her book, when she met Will, they seemingly fell in love — total, besotted love — with each other. She was probably as luminescent as a pearl, her lily gait as delicate as the swaying of a bamboo in a tropical breeze and, in that flash of the dazzling light of love and all the possibilities of an opulent existence, the future of this power couple must have gleamed like a fairy palace, an earthly paradise of their dreams, with Will as king of the vast domain and Jada as the unquestionable queen.

She writes that, “Will was a guy who could be comfortable in the hood or at the White House and everywhere in between. He had the ability to spread his arms wide and promise you that the world was his oyster, and he was going to give you all the pearls it had to offer”.

Jada reveals that she grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States of America. Her challenges started early as her parents were both drug addicts. As a teenager, Jada started dealing in drugs.

One of her highlights seems to be the day she met Tupac Shakur, the famed American rapper. She writes that he introduced himself to her,

“‘Hi,’ he says, ‘I’m Tupac.’ I am struck by the power of that unusual name. Tupac. His smile will become an unforgettable feature — a million watts of white teeth — and his hands feel strikingly clammy, becoming an ongoing joke between us for the duration of our friendship. The power of his presence lets me know right away that he is something special”. She also reveals that, “(Tu)Pac wanted me as a wife to get him through his jail sentence, but not for a lifetime”.

Media reports indicate that Will and Jada Smith have accumulated a lot of wealth, including a sprawling number of properties, adding up to a staggering USD $63 million property portfolio.

However, even with all this, Jada reveals in her memoirs that she still felt empty probably experiencing dislocation, instability and strangeness, with the sense of someone lost and disoriented. With all she had, she seemingly felt neither fully at ease nor at home.

She reveals in the book that when Will slapped Chris Rock (who had made a joke about her) during the 94th Academy Awards (Oscars) on March 27, 2022, they had been living as a separated couple for six years.

The book seems most interesting when Jada recounts her struggles and how she overcomes some of those challenges with her “can do” mentality. However, after her success, she seems to throw around motivational quotes and that part doesn’t jell well with her story.

There are several lessons from Jada’s memoirs. Firstly, it’s okay not to be okay. She has revealed that she has struggled with depression and has sought help.

With cases of mental health issues rising in Kenya, that’s comforting because if a star of Jada’s calibre can face depression, even with all she has materially, it’s okay not to be okay. People should take care of their mental health, no matter how successful they look outwardly. And that people should speak freely about mental health and seek help.

Secondly, influential people in society from our favourite actors, musicians, to other public figures should write their stories, temporarily pulling back the curtains so they give us a peek into their personal lives.

Many aspects of their lives could inspire people who are still struggling to find their paths to destiny and through their books, such influential people could mentor millions of people they will never meet.

We hope that Kenyan stars from comedians, musicians to actors will borrow a leaf from Jada Smith so they pen down their life journeys to inspire others.

- The writer is a book publisher based in Nairobi. [email protected]