Jada Pinkett Smith has admitted she ‘resented’ husband Will Smith when they separated because she felt like she’d been ‘thrown to the curb.’
The Magic Mike XXL star, 52, revealed last week that she and Will, 55, secretly separated seven years ago and have been living apart.
Speaking candidly about her marital struggles she told Steven Bartlett on The Diary Of A CEO podcast that their troubles stemmed from having different ‘love languages’ and Jada mistakenly believing that she would find happiness through Will rather than in herself.
She explained: ‘Will’s love language was “I want to work. I want to work hard so that you can have everything in the world that you’d ever want. You’re not going to need for anything.”
‘My love language was “I just want you to be here with me. I don’t need all of that stuff, I want to look in your eyes and feel your love and feel your protection here with me.” It was like that connection I wanted to feel.’
Candid: Jada Pinkett Smith has admitted she ‘resented’ husband Will Smith when they separated because she felt like she’d been ‘thrown to the curb’ (pictured in 2014)
Jada continued: ‘I wanted to make a masterpiece out of our connection. He wanted to make a masterpiece out of you know the life itself, and neither’s wrong.
‘That’s what I had to learn, where we’ve come to now and understanding neither one of those wants are wrong. So how do you balance them? Because it can’t be one or the other. Everything about life is balance.
‘As couples we get into these power struggles [but] it’s not about anybody being right or wrong, it’s how do you get the balance of it. It took Will and I three decades!’
Explaining that she lost herself in the relationship, Jada continued: ‘I felt at that time “I want to help you do all of those things I’m here to help you with that” and in return I should get a bit of what I want.
‘It was me just giving and giving and forgiving… not realising that I was abandoning myself in the hopes that if I just keep pouring into this, if I just keep pouring into him, if I keep pouring into his dream, I’m going to eventually get what I want.
‘That’s a false idea in so many ways and so many of us do that. If Will looked back and was trying to give me whatever the hell it was I was asking for he wouldn’t have been able to accomplish it anyway.
‘Because if I’m not connected to myself, if I don’t have a good relationship with me, there’s nothing he can do.
‘That’s part of the journey, there’s no right or wrong. Everybody’s always trying to find the good guy or bad guy in people’s stories.
‘There’s no good guys or bad guys we’re all wounded trying to figure this s**t out and so it took me a long time to realise it is not his responsibility to make you happy. He can’t.’
At odds: Speaking candidly about her marital struggles she told Steven Bartlett on The Diary Of A CEO podcast that their troubles stemmed from having different ‘love languages’
Jada confessed that she felt at odds because she couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t fulfilled and revealed that when she and Will separated he told her to go and ‘make herself happy.’
Asked how she took his advice, Jada confessed: ‘Not well!
‘I think it was very true but at that particular point of time I was just still really resentful.
‘I’m just like “oh so I helped you get your happiness now you just going to you know throw me to the curb and you know I got to do it all on my own now” but that’s the truth I had to do it on my own, you know just like he did.
‘A lot of that’s what it’s about, me detoxing from needing fulfillment and validation outside of myself, detoxing from needing it from Will, my marriage, my family, my career.
‘I had to get to the bare bones of Jada and walk the exiled lands.’
Jada previously revealed that she and Will, who tied the knot in 1997, are still trying to ‘figure out’ what the future of their marriage looks like.
Speaking to People, Jada explained that no permanent decisions have been made about the future of her marriage, explaining that she and Will are ‘still figuring it out’.
‘We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together,’ she said. ‘We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like.’
Separated: Jada previously revealed that she and Will, who tied the knot in 1997, are still trying to ‘figure out’ what the future of their marriage looks like (pictured in 2022)
