October 19, 2023 • 54 mins
Jada Pinkett Smith joins Chelsea this week for a very special episode, to talk about how ayahuasca helped her out of long-standing depression, why she and Will have chosen to have an unconventional marriage, and what really happened onstage that night.
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Read Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith here.
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Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at DearChelseaPodcast@gmail.com
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Executive Producer Catherine Law
Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Hi, cat Ra Hi. What a whirl?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Was that an echo? Is that my voice bouncing off
the walls right back into my throat where it belongs.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
We were just like turning into the same person.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
A whirlwind of a weekend.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Oh my gosh, you had an amazing show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Thank you for coming. Two amazing shows. That's the Pantages
in La and everyone came out. It was so much fun.
I felt like I was I felt like my wedding.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Everyone was there.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I was at two nights of that though. The Haley
party was twice as long as the show night. And
then I had Phoenix on Saturday night and we're on
the plane there and I said to Carla, I'm like,
is there anyone coming backstage? She's like, not one single person.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I was like, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We were in and out of there.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
We grabbed our tacos and left. I was like, let's
get out all. Oh, that's so exciting. Yeah, there were
a lot of friends of the show. There, a lot
of people who have guested on the show, and it
was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, my family came. I walked outside and said a
lobby for the after party, and my aunt was there.
She hates everybody she hates all social gatherings. She hates
the public. The fact that she came out to my
show and patages was so sweet. It brought tears to
my eyes. All my cousins came, all my friends from
Chelsea that my old show on Netflix were there. It
was so fun, such a nice Oh, it was really great. Yeah,
(01:12):
and I'm coming this weekend, you guys. Tickets are still available.
Cleveland is Friday night, Columbus is Saturday night, and Pittsburgh
is Sunday night. All three nights of those still have
tickets available, So if you're in the areas, come to
my show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Very exciting. Yeah, it's a fantastic show.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, so fun to perform.
I'm having the best time on the road. It's a
big party.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
How's your energy level this tour?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It's good. I mean, as long as I have a
day where I can Just like last night, I went
to bed at around seven, I went to the Angel
City soccer game then so fun. Yeah, with Glenna Doyle
and Abbey and I brought Jamie makeup and we all
went and it was fucking awesome. They won. Yeah, and
now they're going to the championships. Or the playoffs or something. Yeah,
I don't know soccer jargon, but it was really fun
(01:56):
to be there.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, all my lesbian friends have like season passes to that.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh yeah, all the lesbians are get down to get me.
They know that it's a matter of time before I
transition into a lesbian and that I make my way
over to that world. I told them, like, I still
have like at least one hundred men left to exhaust
before I make a commitment, but clearly I'm on my way.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, they're just waiting exactly exactly, waiting patiently.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Incredible. So our guest today is kind of everywhere right now.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yes, yes, yes, she's everywhere, and now she's here. Her
name is Jada Pinkett Smith and her book is called Worthy. Okay,
well we have lots to cover on this topic because
I just read this book in one day and everybody
is going to want to get their hands on it.
It's called Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith and it is
her Well, it's her life story. And I have learned
(02:44):
so much about you that I did not know, And
I'm like, how did I not know that? And I
was like, well, I guess you don't know these things
about everybody. You know, you don't know everybody's per most
personal things. And but I think let's start at the beginning.
Because you grew up in the hood. Yeah, well partly
partly in the hut. Yeah, well you grew towards the hook.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I grew Yeah, it was like part of my life.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
I think once I turned about thirteen and my grandmother
passed and it was just me and my mom, and
that's when things took a turn.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Things took a turn. Yeah, your mother for you, yep.
And your dad rob sul rop suol robool Okay, okay,
really ropsul, but he would say rough stool rub school. Okay.
But I had no idea that you grew up in
that environment that you were a heroin dealer.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
No, it was cocaine.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Oh, it was cocaine.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
It was cocaine. My mother was a heroin addict. But
I was selling cocaine.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I was kind of hoping it was a heroin dealer.
I'm not sure why, probably because I once dated a
heroin dealer and I was confusing the two. But okay,
so you were a cocaine dealer and that was what age?
What age were you when you did.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
That from about fifteen to seventeen, and that was a
way for you to make things right in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
You were being pretty neglected at home, right, and you
were just basically a survivalist, but not even a survivalist.
You you were into that lifestyle of living there, like
you wanted to stay in Baltimore. You were going to
the Baltimore School of Arts Arts.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, I was going to Baltimore School for the Arts. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah. And so talk to me about the headspace of
that little girl.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
Well, she, as you can see, she was living many lives.
And I think for me at that particular point of time,
considering like where my mom was, like, I had no
idea if she was gonna make it or that, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And so for me it was.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Talking about Gammy every ye you know, from red Table.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
To talk, and I just wanted to find a way
to find my own security, find my own power, my
own sense of worth, right right. And so I got
some of that from going to Baltimore School for the
Arts and being able to really kind of just be
in this creat.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Of world that I loved so much.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
But at the same time, I was like, yo, I
need to make money, I need to have security, I
need to have stability. And so I was also in
the streets. So and then I auditioned for North Carolina
School for the Arts and got in, got robbed, had
some pretty bad too, pretty bad experiences that my mom
found out about, and then she was like, oh, no,
(05:24):
you're getting up out of here. You will be going
to college because I wasn't expecting to go to school.
I was like, no, I'm gonna stay in Baltimore and
I'm going to try to be a queen pin.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
And you wanted to state you that's what you wanted
to pursue, and that state of mind, you were like,
I'm going to make it here and do what these
guys on the streets are doing as a woman, because
you were a tough ass bitch. Yeah, and you weren't
to be fucked with, and you believed that you could
do that. I did, and you did do it for
a while, for a moment, until I got.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
A little till it got a little dicey.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah. There's a couple of stories in this book where
she was really very close to while probably getting shot,
losing or losing your life. But I love the juxtaposition
of being that talented because everybody knew you were talented
at that age. People were spotting your talent, and it
was came easily to you.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I would say it did.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It came easily, whether it was dancing, acting. Maybe the
singing wasn't as easy.
Speaker 6 (06:17):
The singing wasn't as easy, for sure, But to get
to get you know, recognized for that at an early
age while also having this kind of other side, you know,
it's it's very human the story, thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
And it's and it's not one dimensional at all, which
is the way really all of our true stories are.
So you go from the Baltimore School for the Arts,
I think, right, and then a mentor of yours kind
of basically made you audition for this university in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Donald Hicken.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
He was my theater He was the theater department head,
and he was like, you need to go and audit.
Because I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to
North Carolina, Like that's just not happening.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
He's like, listen, you're going to go in here audition.
This is going to be good for you.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
And so I went in and I got accepted, and
you know, even once I got accepted, I was still
like I'm not going, you know. And then life took
a turn at my mother. Even though my mother had
her drug abuse problems, her substance abuse problems, when it
was really time for her to step up, she always
(07:23):
seemed to find a way to do that. And she
was not taking no for an answer about getting me
out of Baltimore once she found out that I had
been dealing drugs and I almost lost my life and
she was like you're getting up out of here. I
don't care what you say.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Mmm. And then there's a really poignant story in the
book without giving away all of the book, but these
are just such rich stories in here, like it's such
a full life that you've led, right. And there's a
point in the story in the book where she calls
her mom after a year of school and you're like
fuck this shit, Like I got this. You have two choices.
I can either become a lawyer and go to law school.
(08:00):
I'm going to Hollywood and I'm going to try and
make it happen.
Speaker 7 (08:03):
And she's like, get your ass to Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
She sure was yup.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
She flew out with me to get me set up
in La.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It's so funny. I have like there's a similar When
I was nineteen years old, I went to a year
of community college, or sorry, a semester of community college,
and I was a hot mess as a teenager. My
parents were just sick of me, and I remember after
one semester, I said to them, I go, I just
think this is a waste of everyone's time. I said,
I think it's time for me to go to California.
My father goes, please go, Please get away from us
(08:38):
and go right, And once you get away from the
people that you have taken for granted or you feel
have mistreated you or haven't been available to you, that
is the first time you gain appreciation for that kind
of familial love.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Absolutely right, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Another fascinating thing about this book is your relationship with
Chupac from the age of fourteen. YEPM and you guys
were friends for the rest of his life.
Speaker 7 (09:09):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
And close friends, really close friends. And there were a
lot of rumors that you guys were a couple. But
that's not true.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
That is so not true. As you could see from
the book, that was not true.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, it sounds like he wanted to be a couple. More.
It's funny though, because when you talk about your relationship
with him, of course, when you're reading about you know,
a man and a woman coming of age at that time,
you're like, well, there's got to have something romantic happening.
And you even say in the book that you tried,
like you tried to kiss him, and I was like,
this is not.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
For both of us, right, for both of us, that's
the thing.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
And I think, you know, even in that moment in
the book where he thinks he wants to marry me,
I think it was just based out of a really
extreme circumstance because he was at Rikers and he was
a He was in a really bad way, and he
knew I was a rock for him, and I think
at that time he just really needed a tether.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
But I promise I tell everybody, as soon as he
would have walked out of those gates, he would have
divorced my ass. For sure. He did not want me
as a wife.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
But you were thinking about it.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
I was because I really felt like, well, maybe this
is something I should do to get him through time.
He wanted somebody to do time with him, and I
was going to do time with him, you know, I
was going to do that time with him, but I
was like, man like, and then I asked him, I
was like, psychological wife, conjugal wife, like what And he
was like, nah, like you're gonna be my wife?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Like I was like, now, Pagna, you know this is
not gonna work. I was like, I can't do that.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
I'm not no.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And so we worked through that.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
We got through that passage and you know, brought it
back to where it needed to be.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And what are your some of the words that you
would use to describe.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Him, Oh, man really passionate, very charismatic, and he really
wore his heart on his sleeve.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
He's really a deeply feeling person.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Yeah, I'm really highly sensitive, you know, And I think
that probably is the part that got overlooked a lot because,
you know, his public persona a lot of times you
would see him, you know, depicted as this like rageful angry.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
But that just had to do with like he had that.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Existential heartbrokenness that we all kind of suffer from, and
he just, you know, he had a difficult time dealing
with what is what was you know, the suffering of
people and the unfairness of life and those kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, it's fascinating to hear about all of the different
seminal relationships that you've had with all of these people
kind of and it was something I loved reading about
particularly was the acknowledgment from people like heroes that you
looked up to as soon as you came on the
scene in La that knew like this girl's got it,
like Debbie Allen.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Debbie Allen Number one.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Great story in the book about Debbie Allen the meeting
Jada an audition for a role and that you know
you didn't weren't right for, but she's like, forget about that,
You're so special, Like I'm going to write you a role.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
She made me a series regular in the Room and
then created Lena James from the Story of my Life.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
She was like, tell me about your life, and so.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
I told her about my background and then she created
the character Lena James.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, that's cool, right.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
It's just cool to also be recognized at such a
young age because you came here as such a young girl,
you know, as did I remember that feeling of like
you don't know what you're going to do, but you
know you're going to do it. I just don't know
how it's going to happen. Mm hmm, right, Like it's
like a bowling ball. Like I say this a lot.
If there's a bowling ball moving in a direction, you
better get out of the way because it's going right.
(12:47):
And then so you came to La and Tubac was
already here when you got to La.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
He came out before, he came out before me.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
Yeah, and so he was up north California, but he
would come to La a lot because I was there,
and so we were rising together. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And how is his relationship when you married Will? Did
they get along? Did they have a cute relationship or not?
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Well, by the time he was already gone, Oh he was. Yeah,
he was gone when I married Will. Oh, I see, yeah,
so but he.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
When I started dating Will.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
What's funny is that you know, Plack always has something
to say about whoever I was seeing always, And how
I know that he had approval of Will was because
he didn't say anything. He didn't say nothing, right, And
so I really do believe that as time went on,
(13:40):
if he had not been murdered, then they would have
been friends.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, And how is your relationship with Tupac's girlfriends?
Speaker 5 (13:48):
I always welcome. I was like, I'm a love who
you love. Yeah, we don't keep it right there, I'm
a love who you love. So I never had any
problems with any of his girlfriends.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, never, Yeah, it's usually the other way around.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah. Anyway, you know, nobody was ever good enough.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yeah, you know, it's just like, ah that he's a clown,
you know. You know, listen, worry about your life.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Okay, so you moved to California. You have which ext
I mean, there are so many experiences to delve into.
There is a very very poignant multiple chapters about your
Ayahuasca journey. Yeah, there's a lot of really beautiful stuff
in there about both of your children, Jaden and Willow,
and what it means to you to be a mother.
And I think you've made some really brave choices as
(14:35):
far as being able to let go of a baby
that is not even fully you know cooked, how the
traditional kind of perspective of motherhood is, especially in this country,
and how we look at it, that there's a lot
of sense that people children feel like parents property, like
(14:56):
like the parents own their children, and that they decide
what's best for them. And I'm your and you need
to listen to me, and that's it. Just shut up,
and what you're introduced in this book is a completely
different way to look at these things. That these children
are your teachers, That these children deserve their independence and
their will, and that you need to listen to even
someone who's eight years old when they tell you they
(15:17):
don't feel comfortable doing something, Absolutely you must. So talk
to me a little bit about that. And how do
you think you became that way?
Speaker 5 (15:26):
I think it was a combination of how I was
raised in my grandmother's house and in my mother's house. Honestly, now,
being that my mother had problems with substance.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Abuse, I had a lot of freedom.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
So within that freedom, I got to see the importance
of having that freedom to be able to self actualize
at such a young age. Now, in that I definitely
needed some bumper rails, right, And so I took a
little bit of what I discovered with how my life
(16:01):
was with my mother, and I just put in some.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Safety guards with my kids, right.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
And then I just thought about how my grandmother nurtured
certain aspects of myself, Like she saw certain things in
me and she was like, oh, you're athletic, I'm gonna
put you in tennis. Oh, you like to dance, ballet, Okay, piano.
So she was always there to just kind of cultivate.
She kept me busy, and she wanted me to be
(16:27):
what she.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Would call well rounded.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
And so I just looked at all of these components,
you know, and then I thought about at different stages,
what did I need at this stage when, like Jaden
at fifteen, I was on my own at fifteen.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Right, So let me just to contextualize this. So there's
a part of the book where Jaden says to his
mom and I think Willa was in the room at
the same time, right, and says, in a very prophetic way,
I need to feel the rain. I need my freedom.
It's time for me to yo go.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
Right. When he said I need to feel the rain,
I knew exactly what that meant. I knew exactly what
that meant, and I knew he was going to be
down the street.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And that is chilling to think about as a mother.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, it was a devastating day.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
I just remember being so heartbroken, but I knew, I knew.
I was like, if you don't let him go, now,
this is going to be a bigger problem than if
you do. And he came, you know, like a year later,
year and a half later, and he's like, I get it.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
You know.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
It's like he had an opportunity to take on his life,
take on his responsibility and got to see everything that
we were trying to do as parents. He was like, oh, man,
I understand why you did this and why you did that.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Da da da da.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
But he grew up in such a beautiful way. And
he left at fifteen and never came back.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And so when he came back a year and a
half later, he just said, I got it, but I'm
still yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I mean, he says, basically he had an aha.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
You know, it was like him just kind of giving
us our flowers as parents, you know, I mean we
were talking to him every day and so, but just
that AHA moment that he had when he was about
sixteen and a half. Because I knew if you let
him go, now, Jada, he's going to come back faster,
not meaning come back into the house and live.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I knew that was over.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
He was never going to come back in that way,
but I knew that psychologically he was going to come back.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
So I say all that to say that.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
I learned quickly that each child has to be honored separately.
There's not like this cookie cutout way in which like, oh,
this is what a fifteen year old needs, this is
what a fourteen year old needs. I would never let
Willow leave the house at fifteen. Ever, Yeah, she was
not ready.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Jaden was so.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
But what if Willow had decided after that that she
wanted to leave the house.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
That would have been a different situation, right, because how
can you say one no to want I mean yes
to one and then know to the other. Because there
was a sense of responsibility that Jaden had and maturity
in that way that Willow hadn't developed yet. Now she
had her own maturity in different ways, you know, in
(19:28):
other areas, but just not that. And so as a
parent you have to be able to look at those nuances.
It's not about and I used to tell because we
talked about this Willow and I. It's not about oh,
Jaden gets to do this and you don't. It's like
whoa I'm looking at as a parent? What you have
(19:48):
more capacity for?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Where are your skill sets?
Speaker 5 (19:52):
You know, I'm not going to put you in a
place that I feel as a parent that you might not.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Be ready for.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Jaden has happened to be ready for that particular Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
There's a cute little passage in the book too, where
she talks about dropping Jaden off at school for the
first time, and he said, Mommy, why would you ever
drop me off with all these people who don't even
love me?
Speaker 7 (20:13):
Yeah, and she's like, oh, fuck, woa fuck, Well, how
am I supposed to answer that? So she says she
drops them off at school and sits in the parking
She goes, you know what, I'm going to sit here
and wait until noon until you get out.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
So she'd go there and wait for him to get
out of school. Mean, mom my, parents weren't dropping me
off or picking me up to like see you exactly?
That's amazing.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
No, I was like, you're right, somebody's always going to
be here who loves you. I'll drop you off and
I will sit in this parking lot until twelve o'clock
every day.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah. Wow, so crazy. It's just so crazy to think
kids can grow up that quickly. It's so bittersweet the
heartache that it causes.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah lots.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah. So, on a more serious note, you talk a
lot about different times life where you felt depressed, overwhelmed,
unable to function, and sometimes even suicidal. This book is
so revealing. This is exactly what a memoir should be.
(21:10):
And I think it's going to help so many people
because to know that someone like you and of your
stature and all of these wonderful things that life looks
like it is is still hard. Yeah, it doesn't make
it easy because you're rich and famous.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Right, and that's the truth.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
And you know, I think at that time when I
was when I went through one of the darkest periods
my fortieth year, when I was really suicidal, I really
had so much shame because I felt like everybody else,
I was just like, what.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Is wrong with you?
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Because my life on the outside wasn't matching how I
was feeling on the inside. And it was so funny
because my mother just finished the book and she's like,
I can't.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Believe you didn't talk about how you woke up every
morning crying.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
And I said, well, I thought it was enough for
me to just talk about me looking for a cliff
to drive off of.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
I didn't want to, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (22:06):
And she said, I got even in reading this memoir.
She said, I'm just getting so much understanding. She was like,
because everybody knew I was unhappy, but nobody knew why,
including myself. Right, so everybody's looking at me like, what
is your deal? You know, why can't you why can't
(22:26):
you be happy?
Speaker 8 (22:28):
Right?
Speaker 5 (22:29):
And so that just shut me down even more, and
I just got into a darker, darker space to the
point I was just like, I want out.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I just didn't see a way out.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
I thought I was inherently broken, inherently something was wrong
with me.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And then, by the grace of.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
God, you know, little Guru Jaden, you know, not even
knowing the state that I was in, comes into the kitchen.
He's like, you gotta listen to Moises and Matale and
hear about their father's experience and right, And so, because
my son knew I'm a seeker and like, you know,
I love different experiences, so I go into the living
(23:08):
room and I'm listening to Moisses and the Tale and
I'm like, is your father in town? I'm like, can
you call them so I can talk to them? And
as soon as their dad I saw their father, I
could just see the brightness.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I was like, this is a different guy.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
And then I started talking to him about his experience,
and I was like, I need this, I need this,
And then the universe opened up an opportunity for me
in oh Hi to be able to go and do
aya about a month and a half later and changed
my whole life. I got to see through the medicine
(23:42):
the cycle of self hatred. Oh my god, yeah, deep,
cycle of self hatred.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Deep and so and yes, And because what you talk
about is when you don't have the answers for why
you feel this way, it's almost like you're burrowing a
bigger hole within yourself. That's right, because without you know you.
I love when people call it medicine ayahuasca because it
is medicine and that's what it's for. The imagery and
the sensation that you feel when you do ayahuasca can't
(24:09):
be explained by anything else, like they're and these are
you know, it's it's spiritual. It's like there's a spirit
guide who's telling you. And you talk about all your
different experiences in this book and how many I mean
I think you've done it multiple times. I have tons,
and you get something new out of it each time.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Every time, every time.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And one of your very first experiences was so bad
and dark that I was like, what, this bitch is crazy?
And you went back and you're like, I think I
need to stay at it for the next night, which
was not even planned.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Well, yeah, because I felt like I was possessed. Let
me tell you, my kids have been life savers.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Literally.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
The only reason why I went back in is because
I was like, whatever's on me, I can't take this
to my children. That's the only reason why I went back.
If I didn't have kids, I probably I don't even know, Chelsea. Honestly,
I wouldn't have had sometimes and I realized this in life,
sometimes it's you're not your motivation and that's okay.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You know.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
There have been times when I've had to think about
other people and most of the time my kids, and
that particular time it was about my kids.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And I went back and then I had.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
To go through yet another difficult night, but it brought me.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
To that space of resolve and light and that was
much more peaceful. And then you've continued to use it.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, I use it. I well, right after that, I
didn't do it for a year because it was terrified.
I was like, if this is.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
What this experience is I don't want to do this
ever again.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I got through.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
I'm okay, thank you, I don't want to kill myself anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Thank you, thank you for the healing.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
But then a year later I was like, I feel
like I need to go back, and so I went
back again. And then after that I started going often,
just like every three weeks.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
I was just in the room, in the room.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
And do you prefer to have that experience alone or
with other people?
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I did it for years by myself, with just me
and a guide, and.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I think I needed that, but now I really enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
But then I think you needed it too, because I mean,
look at the results. Yeah, I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It is medicine. It is so you did not kill yourself,
Thank God, because you were able to survive these terrible
bouts of depression, of self hatred, of self immolation, which
I think so many people can relate to, and so
many people feel like they're the only people in the
world feeling that way. And that's what's so heartbreaking is
that they're not alone, like no one listening. You're never alone.
(26:44):
You know, you're not the only person going through things
like this, and there are ways to survive, you know,
and if it's not plant medicine, there are other ways
to survive. You can pick up the phone and call
a hotline. You can call a suicide hotline. You can
call a family member, you can call someone who knows
to care about you. Because I also have to remember
that these feelings are never permanent. These are all temporary feelings,
and they can feel like they are going to take
(27:06):
control of you forever, but they will not. That's right, Okay,
So moving along, what was your I want to know
how did you come to the decision to write this
book at this time in your life?
Speaker 5 (27:15):
Well, it was really twenty twenty one and on this
journey to you know, self worth, Jay Shetty, who's like
a brother to me, had been by my side and
he's like, you need to write a book. And I
was like, I don't fucking want to write a book.
I don't want to write a book. And we got
into it one day and I was like, you know what, Jada,
You know, Jay's this is your brother. Just just think
(27:38):
about why he might be thinking that this is something
good for you to do. And you know, a couple
of days later, as in meditation, I was like, oh man, wow,
my journey from feeling unlovable to feeling lovable. That's a
universal journey. Most of us are on that journey. And
I was like, that's that's a worthy story. That's a
(28:00):
worthy journey to share. And I felt like I had
been through so much. I'd been through the gauntlet of
like people saying all kinds of crazy stuff about me,
and I felt like I could afford to really give
a deep, honest exploration of my journey because I don't
(28:22):
have the fear of being criticized or judged in a
certain way. Because I feel like a lot of us women,
our stories are still considered taboo to really tell the
real deal, right, and we feel like that we're going
to be dragged through the mud and that's not fun.
(28:44):
I've already been dragged through the mud, so okay, you
know what I mean. So I want to offer this
journey for those who need to be seen in a
certain manner, who might be in a hopeless place, because
I know when I was in a hopeless place, if
there had been a story like this that I could
just have some breadcrumbs, I could have oxygen. I'm like,
(29:04):
I'm not alone. This person can see me. This person
is showing me that I'm not the only This is
not a unique experience that I'm having, and I don't
have to have shame about it.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
And another reason what you're saying is striking me is
because within this book, there have been many moments where
the women in your life have come to you seeing,
you know, whether it was at your fortieth or a
different time, saying seeing that you weren't okay and actually
stepping in and how meaningful that is, which is something
that we talk about a lot on this podcast when
(29:40):
people call in, is do I get involved? Do I
say something? And a firm believer that the answer is
always yes if you are especially if you are a
woman and it's another woman, it doesn't even matter if
you're close to her or not, because that's your ego,
like just make sure every woman is okay. Like from
women women, I see something's wrong? Are you okay? And
(30:03):
the impact that that had on you, whether it was
from very close friends or not so close friends, is
you know, invaluable.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It is and it's so important.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
I'm glad that you said, even if it's someone that
you are not close to, you know, from women to
women when we understand what this journey is like on
this earthly plane, you know what I mean. And it's like,
it's a universal journey. I don't care the color of
your skin, what language you speak. We've got some universal struggles, right,
(30:34):
And so I really I'm with you. I feel like
that's part of what we're here to do as women
is to help each other, right, and part of that
is sharing our stories, you know, and being able to
use the wisdom that we collect along the way to
help others, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, And there's a lot of wisdom in the book.
And you talk very openly about your marriage with Will
and you guys are when you got married you made
a very sacred value to each other that divorce wasn't
an option.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Yeah, it was like because as you read, you know,
I wasn't interested in having like the wedding because I
was like, first of all, we're doing something really serious here.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
You know, I don't have I don't have time for
a wedding.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
You know, this is so fucking serious. Why do we
have This is a serious shit.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
I don't have time to be thinking about bridesmaids and
what fucking dress I'm wearing.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I'm about to fucking commit myself to you forever and.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I'm about to have a baby.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Like this is not what I thought my life to be, right,
And so I wanted to go to the mountaintop. I
was like, look, we need to get with God and
figure this out, Like this is serious. We got to
commit to each other in a spiritual.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Way, because you guys had a very spiritual connection from
the time you met.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, we did.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
And so when we were outside on that log in
his mother's backyard and he was talking about a prenup,
and I was just like, if we're gonna talk about
the end at the beginning, just don't marry me. I'm
not interested. I'm okay, I don't want it. And you know,
(32:19):
he was like, I get it. He was like, I
you know, I don't think we need a prenup. If
you don't think we need a prenup, we don't need
a prenup. And I said, I'm telling you we're gonna
work through everything. That was my sacred vow that day,
right and so, and he looked to me and he
said okay. And so in that moment, for me, that
(32:41):
was my mountaintop moment. That was like my moment with
God saying we I am going to We're gonna work
through everything, you know, And it's not about money and
all of that. It's about that moment of making that
commitment and that vow. And let me tell you it's
it's not an easy vow to keep because ultimately, when
(33:03):
you're talking about being with somebody forever, forever. I talked
about it in the book, you're gonna go through that
jungle together and you're gonna get to see what shows
up what doesn't show up in one another. But that's
what a marriage is, right. You're gonna have your honeymoon
stages and then you're gonna.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Have your hell stages.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
But it's just such a crack of shit that people
don't talk about that when you're getting married.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Yeah, because that's the problem, Chelsea. That's why I feel
like the ceremony is not the way you should start
a word, because it's setting you, it's setting up this fantasy. Yeah,
And I knew my marriage was not gonna be a fantasy, right.
I knew that from the gate. I didn't know then,
but that I was just gonna run into my shit that's.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Really what I was scared of.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well, I think so many of us believe that, like,
we have our shit, we have our shit, and then
some guy's gonna come along and you're like, I see
your shit, and I'm gonna take care of your shit,
and I don't worry about your shit. It's not shit
with me, right, And it's like, no, it is. It
is because it's ours.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
It's ours, and it's going to be really shitty. Yeah,
it's going to be really shitty at times. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
I wonder how many women would be able to sit
and listen to that conversation before getting married, Like, just
so you know, this isn't going to be twenty years
of bliss, right, There are gonna be many, many moments
of despair and disappointment.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yes, I wish, God, I wish. I don't mean to
be a debute. Listen. Weddings are great. I want to
start right, but I feel like.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
The marriage ceremony set up the way that it is
now gives a really false impression of what marriage is
going to be.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
You know, you have the white dress, you know, the
princess of the day.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
It's a fairy tale and I'm like, yeah, that's not
what you have moments of that, but a marriage.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
To me, and I've been learning along the way, it's
really a holy path of purification.
Speaker 6 (35:08):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
It's like there is nothing like an intimate partner to
make you have to look at your stuff and clean
it up, you know, for each person involved. And because
it's in that intimate partnership where you really get to
the nitty gritty, you really get to those buttons you
know that are the deep.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
There is like a mine field.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
And you have to have two willing participants. Yeah, because
somebody could be a seeker like yourself, and somebody could
be a nonseeker and be like, I'm not interested in
all of this, you know what I mean. I was
just on vacation with some girlfriends in my Orca and
one of my friends was telling me about her husband
and she's like, he's seeking out all the stuff. He's
seeking out all this stuff. I go, that's great, why
don't you go with him and seek it out? And
(35:52):
she's like, I have no interest in any of that.
And I was like, but you're okay for him to
go do it, right, And she's like, yeah, I just
want him to go figure his shit out and I
thought interesting because, like you know, you can have two
people who are seeking and it can cause a lot
of you know, it could be fractious, but you can
also sometimes people just need to go and be on
their own, yes, and then come back.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
That's right, and that I feel like in long term
relationships that is an inevitable passage where you have to
go on your own.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah. You talk about that in the book that you
guys have been separated for many years. Yeah, six years.
Well when you wrote the book, it was six years. Yeah,
six years, six years at the oscars. You were separated
six years at the Oscars, is what you said. Yeah,
so but you're not divorced, no, and you have no
plans to get divorced. No, So talk to us about that.
(36:48):
I'm down with it. I think this is a great
new way of thinking about marriage.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, you know, that's new. They're not getting divorced. Part,
that's new.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Okay, Yeah, because in twenty sixteen I was definitely thinking
about it.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Oh yeah, well twenty sixteen was when Trump was elected
to I think a lot of people were thinking a
lot of things. We'll just put that on him for now, right,
But okay, so you were thinking about it. But yeah,
but you didn't take the steps to do it.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
I didn't take the steps to do it never, you know,
never sought a lawyer. But it wasn't that I wasn't
thinking about it, because I was just like, all right,
how do I do this? How do I uncouple consciously?
I don't want to do it from a place of resentment,
from a place of anger. I don't want to create
just a messy bloodshed, right, And so I was really
(37:40):
trying to figure that out, working on myself getting to.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
A place of like.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Peaceful resolve between us, which took a lot longer than
I expected, you.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Know, several several several years.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
And then when Will finished Emancipation, a huge shit happened
in him. I think that was a really difficult movie
for him to shoot.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
A lot of stuff came up for him.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
And that was when he asked me to get back
into some therapeutic settings.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
With him, and we started.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
Doing some deep work in a way that we had
never done before. Then he got nominated and he was like, listen,
there's nobody else that I want by my side during
this time, you know, because we were still family, right,
and he was like, you know, were you do this
run with me?
Speaker 1 (38:34):
And I was like absolutely, of course, you.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Know, And what was the like? So you guys were
living separately and we were living separately.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
I had bought I had bought a house because I
really needed talking about needing to go on your separate journey.
I had gone on several separate journeys and just trying
to get to a place of happiness within myself, place
of peace and really making peace with what is, you know,
(39:04):
just like trying to detox from a romanticized version of
myself as well as the romanticized version of Will and
a romanticized version of our togetherness. Because even though I
might not have had the white wedding romantic version, I
(39:25):
had to really come to the understanding that I had
a romantic idea of what I wanted our connection to
look like.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
I wanted this masterpiece of connection between Will and I.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
Now, how do you have a masterpiece of connection with
someone else if you don't have it with yourself. And
that's what I had to learn, really detoxing from the
idea that it was his job to make me happy
because I believed I sat here and I helped you
get every fucking thing you wanted. You need to now
(40:01):
help me get the dream I wanted, which is.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Connection between us, damn it, you know.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
And I had to really recognize that that wasn't something
he could give me even if he tried, because I
wasn't willing to give it to really know, have an
intimate relationship with myself and.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Deal with my shit.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
And so in that six years period, that's what I
had been doing. So now we're in these therapeutic settings
and we're really doing some deep work, really deep work.
And so when we got to the Oscars, we were
in a really good place, you know, and doing this
deep work together.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And then yeah, well, I think you should talk about it,
because I think people wonder what you were thinking and
what I mean, it's in the book. You talk about
it in the book. Yeah, I mean, so you don't
have to get into it. But I think you were
as surprised as anyone else.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
I was super surprised at first because he had been
going back and forth to the backstage, and I was like,
oh wow, when he got up. When Chris said what
he said, I rolled my eyes because I knew when
I first saw Chris's name as one of the presenters,
I remember saying to Will, I was like, oh no,
(41:20):
I was like, I hope he plays nice tonight. You know.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
But because Chris and I had buried our beef.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
You know, after twenty sixteen and that whole misunderstanding, he apologized.
I apologized to him. We were in a good place.
I hadn't spoken to him since, and but I just
kept thinking. I was like, ah, he's not gonna be
able to help himself, you know. And I just had
this like my bubble guts, bubble guts, And so Will
was going back and forth backstage, and then when Chris
(41:50):
said what he said, I looked to Will as to say, you.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Believe that shit right? And I wasn't.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
Upset about what Chris said about me, because I'm gonna
be okay.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
It was the idea of I had known.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
So many horrible stories about young people who had committed
suicide because they had alopecia, people who were suffering in
silence and in shame because of alopecia, and I was
just like, I was thinking about my alopecia community and
how on this world stage it was okay to make
fun of alopecia.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And then Will gets up. I'm like, is this a skit.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
He talked to Chris backstage and he didn't say anything
to me. And then Chris, how he's reacting is kind
of like, oh, here comes mister Smith. And I was like,
oh shit, this is a skit. And then from where
I'm sitting, when Will swung, it looked like Chris slipped
the shot. I didn't know he had made contact, and
especially after Chris was still standing, because I'd seen Will
(42:57):
knock professional fighters down in the ring.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
He's a heavy hitter.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, well he's trained, Yeah, he's trained.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
He's a heavy hitter.
Speaker 5 (43:06):
So when he turned around and he started coming back downstage,
I was like, oh no, this is not a joke.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Something is wrong here.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
And now I can see that Will's not necessarily in
present time. So he comes and he sits down and
I just grab his hand and I look at him
and I said.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Are you okay.
Speaker 5 (43:29):
Chris comes down to the stage and he starts speaking
to me again in the commercial break, at the commercial break,
and he says, I meant no harm. And at that time,
I was so confused and so disrupted because I'm really
worried about Will, because Will has never done anything like
this before. I don't know what's going on. I have
no idea. I don't know what's happening with him, and
(43:52):
I'm really worried about him. And I'm like, Chris, I
can't do this right now, this is about some old
shit it I can't. And then Chris, but Will's going off.
He's going off again. So Denzel comes over and he's
leaning on Will to just calm him down. Chris finishes
(44:15):
his whole thing. Denzel Bradley Cooper take care of Will,
which I'm so grateful for because I was just at
a loss.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
I was at a loss.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
And then his publicist and my publicists come over and
she's like, you know, Chris left the building. He's not
going to press charges. And I was like, press charges
for what? And she's like, Will hit Chris? And I
looked at Will and I said, you hit Chris? Actually,
you actually hit Chris And he said yeah, and I
(44:47):
said okay, and that's when I knew.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
I said, all right, I.
Speaker 5 (44:51):
Might not have walked in here as your wife, but
I'm leaving here as your wife because we're gonna have
to get through this together, you know, yeah, you know.
So that's I have to say that the oscars brought
us closer, so you know, our dynamic has because you
(45:11):
knew that he was in pain. I knew that he
was in pain. I knew that he was going through
a lot. I knew a lot that the public didn't know,
you know, because we had been in these therapeutic spaces together,
and so I knew I had to be byside. And
just because you know, everybody wants to ride in the limo,
(45:32):
that's real talk, right, and that's it was this moment
when I really realized that next level of commitment and love,
because this is about us walking each other home.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
This is about.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
Us helping each other heal, walking each other to those
sacred places within as well as those sacred places without,
where I had to get really deep resolved around that's
what the journey's about, and that we are two people
that came into this relationship at a very young age
(46:10):
with a lot of trauma and thus not having a
lot of information our traumas, how we acted our traumas
out on one another, you know, and just learning how
not to take that personally, and just realizing that we're
walking each other home and that that's about being able
(46:33):
to hold each other's hands in those dark caves with
the Grimlins and the Gargoyles and you know, all of
the monsters.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Right when you say everyone wants to ride in the limo,
not everybody wants to ride when there's no limo.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
Nobody wants to Nobody wants to go in the Haunted
House on the Spooky Bus.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
And I mean it couldn't be more true. Yeah, I
mean everybody knows that. I mean, when you're a celebrity that,
I mean, it's great for celebration and then then when
something goes wrong, you look around and you're like.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Well fuck yeah, it's like everybody.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, So may I ask you what the status is
now of you guys? What's your relationship?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
You're still married, We're still married.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Got that going, Yeah, we got that going.
Speaker 5 (47:16):
And we've really been concentrating on just that healing component together, yeah,
and taking it one day at a time, Chelsea, trying
to figure it out, you know.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
I mean, yeah, very very admirable, very at your honesty
and yeah, it's very I'm really just blown away by
it and I love it. I mean, it's just good
for the world.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, because that's what life is.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
That you know, this idea that these perfect picture you know, you.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Know, you look at like from my perspective, I remember
watching that night thinking what's going on with him? Like,
that's not who he is? What's happening to him? He
must be going through something either with you, with his person.
I mean, it's never about another person only. It's about
everything we've experienced through our lives, and it is our
trauma revisiting us. And when it's not, you know, we
(48:07):
become self actualized when we dig deep and find out
what really happened and why our behaviors are.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
The way they are and why.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
You know. But I remember thinking that that's not who he.
Speaker 5 (48:16):
Is, right, which is why I understood why people thought,
you know, with me putting out or assisting in that
false narrative of me being this adulterous wife, which was
not true, why people automatically thought Jade is the problem.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Oh yeah, we skipped over all that, that whole part,
because I just don't even think that's worth mentioning, because
that's really not right. I mean, it is because it's
part of your story, but that's not part. It's there's
so much more there than that, and I think it's
important to remember and recognize when people are in pain,
because when people are acting in pain, that is not
who they are. And I don't know Will personally, but
(48:55):
I can imagine that he's a very very loving, decent
human being, so loving, and I've heard that a million times,
and so is Chris Rock. Chris, he really is.
Speaker 5 (49:05):
And that's why, you know, even when people ask me,
you know about Chris and all this stuff he said
on Netflix what have you, and I'm like, you know what,
when people are hurting, that's.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Not that's not they're true, that's not their true right.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
So that's not even Chris on that stage, honestly, Like
with all the things.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
That he said, I you mean it in his special
in his special right.
Speaker 5 (49:26):
And because I've had the opportunity to spend time with Chris,
I've seen that part of Chris, you know what I mean.
And I know I know what his eyes looked like
that night when he said to me, I meant no harm.
And I know that to be true to this day,
even with that special he I know he meant no harm. Yeah,
(49:47):
you know right, No, He's just you know, it's just
that hurt place in us. And you know, I've been
there when I'm hurt things that I've done and things
that I've said out of that hurt place.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
It's not me.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
What did Willow have to say about reading the book?
Speaker 5 (50:04):
She just you know, first of all, she's an avid reader,
so she just finds me fascinating, which is awesome, you
know what I mean, because she's like a cool kid,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
She finds you and a Gammy.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Yeah she's at Yeah, she really does.
Speaker 5 (50:19):
So she's enjoyed it. She just can't believe the life
that I've lived, you.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Know, because I've told her stories.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
I can't believe that.
Speaker 5 (50:27):
You know, but then reading it open, it's like mom
mad and you're out here worried about me doing the thing.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
I can't believe you.
Speaker 5 (50:33):
I didn't give you half the problems you gave gam
you know.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Like, so, yeah, she's had a good time. I'm reading it.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Well, this podcast was supposed to take callers, but you
know what, why don't we just leave this as a
special episode. Yeah that's not because this was a very
powerful conversation, and I think I think it is just
such strong messaging. A you know, when you talk about
a woman putting out all of her stuff, it's not
done as much as it's done by men, and when
it is done by men, it's not as emotionally at
(51:06):
the surface. Like you're reading this book and you were like,
it will bring your emotions to the surface on behalf
of what it means to be a woman and all
the pressure. But the reason why women don't do this
is because when they write the truth like this, and
so many times we're thought of as so fierce or
so hard, you know, And when you go through the history,
if you think of people like Belle Hooks or you
(51:26):
think of Gloria Steinem and the way that they were
perceived rather than just because they were truth tellers. It's
so nice to see more women saying, no, this is
my truth, this is the hard core nature of what's happening,
and this is what's happened in my life. And to
know how many lives each one of us has led
you to know how crazy it is you know that
(51:49):
you could be I mean from coming from Baltimore and
doing all of the things that you've done, but having
an inner compass and a north star in a sense
that you're still here thriving, and you're sitting across from me,
and you're beautiful inside and out thank you, And I
just think it's a victory and I feel all women
should be sharing their stories in this way and to
(52:11):
be louder and prouder of who we all are. There
you go, because it's not just men's stories that are important.
This is how we help heel each other, and this
is how we all kind of come together and give
each other room to make mistakes and grow. And you're
still there and you're still filled with love, you know, definitely,
And amen to that, you guys. I mean, that's our
(52:32):
podcast for the day.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Love it, Love you.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Okay. The book is called Worthy. You're gonna get it
and you're gonna thank me, and it's by Jada Pinkett Smith.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Second shows have been added for those of you coming
to see my new stand up tour, which you have
to come because I'm having the best time. We added
a second show into Cincinnati, Los Angeles, which is actually
October thirteenth. There are still tickets for October thirteenth show
in Los Angeles. We added second shows in Chicago, the
Chicago Theater, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco. They're both almost completely
(53:06):
sold out. Detroit, Michigan, and then we added a second
show in Cincinnati in the daytime at five o'clock PM.
I'm doing my first show because I don't have a
night where I can go back, so we added a
second show at five PM, and the original show is
at eight PM. Original show is sold out. Second show
tickets are available Cincinnati. I'm also coming to Cleveland on
(53:27):
October twentieth, and then I'll be in Columbus October twenty
first and Pittsburgh October twenty second. So those three shows
I still have tickets available, And you can go to
Chelsea Hamler dot com for other tickets and other information.
And if you want to buy some of our merch,
that's all available on Chelseahandler dot com. And yeah, guys,
(53:48):
I'll see you on the road.
Speaker 8 (53:50):
If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
and engineered by executive producer Katherine Law and be sure
to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot com.
Hi, Hi, cat Ra Hi. What a whirl?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Was that an echo? Is that my voice bouncing off
the walls right back into my throat where it belongs.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
We were just like turning into the same person.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
A whirlwind of a weekend.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Oh my gosh, you had an amazing show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Thank you for coming. Two amazing shows. That's the Pantages
in La and everyone came out. It was so much fun.
I felt like I was I felt like my wedding.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Everyone was there.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I was at two nights of that though. The Haley
party was twice as long as the show night. And
then I had Phoenix on Saturday night and we're on
the plane there and I said to Carla, I'm like,
is there anyone coming backstage? She's like, not one single person.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I was like, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
We were in and out of there.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
We grabbed our tacos and left. I was like, let's
get out all. Oh, that's so exciting. Yeah, there were
a lot of friends of the show. There, a lot
of people who have guested on the show, and it
was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, my family came. I walked outside and said a
lobby for the after party, and my aunt was there.
She hates everybody she hates all social gatherings. She hates
the public. The fact that she came out to my
show and patages was so sweet. It brought tears to
my eyes. All my cousins came, all my friends from
Chelsea that my old show on Netflix were there. It
was so fun, such a nice Oh, it was really great. Yeah,
(01:12):
and I'm coming this weekend, you guys. Tickets are still available.
Cleveland is Friday night, Columbus is Saturday night, and Pittsburgh
is Sunday night. All three nights of those still have
tickets available, So if you're in the areas, come to
my show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Very exciting. Yeah, it's a fantastic show.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, so fun to perform.
I'm having the best time on the road. It's a
big party.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
How's your energy level this tour?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It's good. I mean, as long as I have a
day where I can Just like last night, I went
to bed at around seven, I went to the Angel
City soccer game then so fun. Yeah, with Glenna Doyle
and Abbey and I brought Jamie makeup and we all
went and it was fucking awesome. They won. Yeah, and
now they're going to the championships. Or the playoffs or something. Yeah,
I don't know soccer jargon, but it was really fun
(01:56):
to be there.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, all my lesbian friends have like season passes to that.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh yeah, all the lesbians are get down to get me.
They know that it's a matter of time before I
transition into a lesbian and that I make my way
over to that world. I told them, like, I still
have like at least one hundred men left to exhaust
before I make a commitment, but clearly I'm on my way.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, they're just waiting exactly exactly, waiting patiently.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Incredible. So our guest today is kind of everywhere right now.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yes, yes, yes, she's everywhere, and now she's here. Her
name is Jada Pinkett Smith and her book is called Worthy. Okay,
well we have lots to cover on this topic because
I just read this book in one day and everybody
is going to want to get their hands on it.
It's called Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith and it is
her Well, it's her life story. And I have learned
(02:44):
so much about you that I did not know, And
I'm like, how did I not know that? And I
was like, well, I guess you don't know these things
about everybody. You know, you don't know everybody's per most
personal things. And but I think let's start at the beginning.
Because you grew up in the hood. Yeah, well partly
partly in the hut. Yeah, well you grew towards the hook.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I grew Yeah, it was like part of my life.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
I think once I turned about thirteen and my grandmother
passed and it was just me and my mom, and
that's when things took a turn.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Things took a turn. Yeah, your mother for you, yep.
And your dad rob sul rop suol robool Okay, okay,
really ropsul, but he would say rough stool rub school. Okay.
But I had no idea that you grew up in
that environment that you were a heroin dealer.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
No, it was cocaine.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Oh, it was cocaine.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
It was cocaine. My mother was a heroin addict. But
I was selling cocaine.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I was kind of hoping it was a heroin dealer.
I'm not sure why, probably because I once dated a
heroin dealer and I was confusing the two. But okay,
so you were a cocaine dealer and that was what age?
What age were you when you did.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
That from about fifteen to seventeen, and that was a
way for you to make things right in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
You were being pretty neglected at home, right, and you
were just basically a survivalist, but not even a survivalist.
You you were into that lifestyle of living there, like
you wanted to stay in Baltimore. You were going to
the Baltimore School of Arts Arts.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, I was going to Baltimore School for the Arts. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah. And so talk to me about the headspace of
that little girl.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
Well, she, as you can see, she was living many lives.
And I think for me at that particular point of time,
considering like where my mom was, like, I had no
idea if she was gonna make it or that, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And so for me it was.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Talking about Gammy every ye you know, from red Table.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
To talk, and I just wanted to find a way
to find my own security, find my own power, my
own sense of worth, right right. And so I got
some of that from going to Baltimore School for the
Arts and being able to really kind of just be
in this creat.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Of world that I loved so much.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
But at the same time, I was like, yo, I
need to make money, I need to have security, I
need to have stability. And so I was also in
the streets. So and then I auditioned for North Carolina
School for the Arts and got in, got robbed, had
some pretty bad too, pretty bad experiences that my mom
found out about, and then she was like, oh, no,
(05:24):
you're getting up out of here. You will be going
to college because I wasn't expecting to go to school.
I was like, no, I'm gonna stay in Baltimore and
I'm going to try to be a queen pin.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
And you wanted to state you that's what you wanted
to pursue, and that state of mind, you were like,
I'm going to make it here and do what these
guys on the streets are doing as a woman, because
you were a tough ass bitch. Yeah, and you weren't
to be fucked with, and you believed that you could
do that. I did, and you did do it for
a while, for a moment, until I got.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
A little till it got a little dicey.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah. There's a couple of stories in this book where
she was really very close to while probably getting shot,
losing or losing your life. But I love the juxtaposition
of being that talented because everybody knew you were talented
at that age. People were spotting your talent, and it
was came easily to you.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I would say it did.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It came easily, whether it was dancing, acting. Maybe the
singing wasn't as easy.
Speaker 6 (06:17):
The singing wasn't as easy, for sure, But to get
to get you know, recognized for that at an early
age while also having this kind of other side, you know,
it's it's very human the story, thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
And it's and it's not one dimensional at all, which
is the way really all of our true stories are.
So you go from the Baltimore School for the Arts,
I think, right, and then a mentor of yours kind
of basically made you audition for this university in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Donald Hicken.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
He was my theater He was the theater department head,
and he was like, you need to go and audit.
Because I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to
North Carolina, Like that's just not happening.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
He's like, listen, you're going to go in here audition.
This is going to be good for you.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
And so I went in and I got accepted, and
you know, even once I got accepted, I was still
like I'm not going, you know. And then life took
a turn at my mother. Even though my mother had
her drug abuse problems, her substance abuse problems, when it
was really time for her to step up, she always
(07:23):
seemed to find a way to do that. And she
was not taking no for an answer about getting me
out of Baltimore once she found out that I had
been dealing drugs and I almost lost my life and
she was like you're getting up out of here. I
don't care what you say.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Mmm. And then there's a really poignant story in the
book without giving away all of the book, but these
are just such rich stories in here, like it's such
a full life that you've led, right. And there's a
point in the story in the book where she calls
her mom after a year of school and you're like
fuck this shit, Like I got this. You have two choices.
I can either become a lawyer and go to law school.
(08:00):
I'm going to Hollywood and I'm going to try and
make it happen.
Speaker 7 (08:03):
And she's like, get your ass to Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
She sure was yup.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
She flew out with me to get me set up
in La.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It's so funny. I have like there's a similar When
I was nineteen years old, I went to a year
of community college, or sorry, a semester of community college,
and I was a hot mess as a teenager. My
parents were just sick of me, and I remember after
one semester, I said to them, I go, I just
think this is a waste of everyone's time. I said,
I think it's time for me to go to California.
My father goes, please go, Please get away from us
(08:38):
and go right, And once you get away from the
people that you have taken for granted or you feel
have mistreated you or haven't been available to you, that
is the first time you gain appreciation for that kind
of familial love.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Absolutely right, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Another fascinating thing about this book is your relationship with
Chupac from the age of fourteen. YEPM and you guys
were friends for the rest of his life.
Speaker 7 (09:09):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
And close friends, really close friends. And there were a
lot of rumors that you guys were a couple. But
that's not true.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
That is so not true. As you could see from
the book, that was not true.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, it sounds like he wanted to be a couple. More.
It's funny though, because when you talk about your relationship
with him, of course, when you're reading about you know,
a man and a woman coming of age at that time,
you're like, well, there's got to have something romantic happening.
And you even say in the book that you tried,
like you tried to kiss him, and I was like,
this is not.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
For both of us, right, for both of us, that's
the thing.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
And I think, you know, even in that moment in
the book where he thinks he wants to marry me,
I think it was just based out of a really
extreme circumstance because he was at Rikers and he was
a He was in a really bad way, and he
knew I was a rock for him, and I think
at that time he just really needed a tether.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
But I promise I tell everybody, as soon as he
would have walked out of those gates, he would have
divorced my ass. For sure. He did not want me
as a wife.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
But you were thinking about it.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
I was because I really felt like, well, maybe this
is something I should do to get him through time.
He wanted somebody to do time with him, and I
was going to do time with him, you know, I
was going to do that time with him, but I
was like, man like, and then I asked him, I
was like, psychological wife, conjugal wife, like what And he
was like, nah, like you're gonna be my wife?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Like I was like, now, Pagna, you know this is
not gonna work. I was like, I can't do that.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
I'm not no.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And so we worked through that.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
We got through that passage and you know, brought it
back to where it needed to be.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And what are your some of the words that you
would use to describe.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Him, Oh, man really passionate, very charismatic, and he really
wore his heart on his sleeve.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
He's really a deeply feeling person.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Yeah, I'm really highly sensitive, you know, And I think
that probably is the part that got overlooked a lot because,
you know, his public persona a lot of times you
would see him, you know, depicted as this like rageful angry.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
But that just had to do with like he had that.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Existential heartbrokenness that we all kind of suffer from, and
he just, you know, he had a difficult time dealing
with what is what was you know, the suffering of
people and the unfairness of life and those kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, it's fascinating to hear about all of the different
seminal relationships that you've had with all of these people
kind of and it was something I loved reading about
particularly was the acknowledgment from people like heroes that you
looked up to as soon as you came on the
scene in La that knew like this girl's got it,
like Debbie Allen.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Debbie Allen Number one.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Great story in the book about Debbie Allen the meeting
Jada an audition for a role and that you know
you didn't weren't right for, but she's like, forget about that,
You're so special, Like I'm going to write you a role.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
She made me a series regular in the Room and
then created Lena James from the Story of my Life.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
She was like, tell me about your life, and so.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
I told her about my background and then she created
the character Lena James.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, that's cool, right.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
It's just cool to also be recognized at such a
young age because you came here as such a young girl,
you know, as did I remember that feeling of like
you don't know what you're going to do, but you
know you're going to do it. I just don't know
how it's going to happen. Mm hmm, right, Like it's
like a bowling ball. Like I say this a lot.
If there's a bowling ball moving in a direction, you
better get out of the way because it's going right.
(12:47):
And then so you came to La and Tubac was
already here when you got to La.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
He came out before, he came out before me.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
Yeah, and so he was up north California, but he
would come to La a lot because I was there,
and so we were rising together. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And how is his relationship when you married Will? Did
they get along? Did they have a cute relationship or not?
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Well, by the time he was already gone, Oh he was. Yeah,
he was gone when I married Will. Oh, I see, yeah,
so but he.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
When I started dating Will.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
What's funny is that you know, Plack always has something
to say about whoever I was seeing always, And how
I know that he had approval of Will was because
he didn't say anything. He didn't say nothing, right, And
so I really do believe that as time went on,
(13:40):
if he had not been murdered, then they would have
been friends.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, And how is your relationship with Tupac's girlfriends?
Speaker 5 (13:48):
I always welcome. I was like, I'm a love who
you love. Yeah, we don't keep it right there, I'm
a love who you love. So I never had any
problems with any of his girlfriends.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, never, Yeah, it's usually the other way around.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah. Anyway, you know, nobody was ever good enough.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yeah, you know, it's just like, ah that he's a clown,
you know. You know, listen, worry about your life.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Okay, so you moved to California. You have which ext
I mean, there are so many experiences to delve into.
There is a very very poignant multiple chapters about your
Ayahuasca journey. Yeah, there's a lot of really beautiful stuff
in there about both of your children, Jaden and Willow,
and what it means to you to be a mother.
And I think you've made some really brave choices as
(14:35):
far as being able to let go of a baby
that is not even fully you know cooked, how the
traditional kind of perspective of motherhood is, especially in this country,
and how we look at it, that there's a lot
of sense that people children feel like parents property, like
(14:56):
like the parents own their children, and that they decide
what's best for them. And I'm your and you need
to listen to me, and that's it. Just shut up,
and what you're introduced in this book is a completely
different way to look at these things. That these children
are your teachers, That these children deserve their independence and
their will, and that you need to listen to even
someone who's eight years old when they tell you they
(15:17):
don't feel comfortable doing something, Absolutely you must. So talk
to me a little bit about that. And how do
you think you became that way?
Speaker 5 (15:26):
I think it was a combination of how I was
raised in my grandmother's house and in my mother's house. Honestly, now,
being that my mother had problems with substance.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Abuse, I had a lot of freedom.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
So within that freedom, I got to see the importance
of having that freedom to be able to self actualize
at such a young age. Now, in that I definitely
needed some bumper rails, right, And so I took a
little bit of what I discovered with how my life
(16:01):
was with my mother, and I just put in some.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Safety guards with my kids, right.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
And then I just thought about how my grandmother nurtured
certain aspects of myself, Like she saw certain things in
me and she was like, oh, you're athletic, I'm gonna
put you in tennis. Oh, you like to dance, ballet, Okay, piano.
So she was always there to just kind of cultivate.
She kept me busy, and she wanted me to be
(16:27):
what she.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Would call well rounded.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
And so I just looked at all of these components,
you know, and then I thought about at different stages,
what did I need at this stage when, like Jaden
at fifteen, I was on my own at fifteen.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Right, So let me just to contextualize this. So there's
a part of the book where Jaden says to his
mom and I think Willa was in the room at
the same time, right, and says, in a very prophetic way,
I need to feel the rain. I need my freedom.
It's time for me to yo go.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
Right. When he said I need to feel the rain,
I knew exactly what that meant. I knew exactly what
that meant, and I knew he was going to be
down the street.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
And that is chilling to think about as a mother.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, it was a devastating day.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
I just remember being so heartbroken, but I knew, I knew.
I was like, if you don't let him go, now,
this is going to be a bigger problem than if
you do. And he came, you know, like a year later,
year and a half later, and he's like, I get it.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
You know.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
It's like he had an opportunity to take on his life,
take on his responsibility and got to see everything that
we were trying to do as parents. He was like, oh, man,
I understand why you did this and why you did that.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Da da da da.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
But he grew up in such a beautiful way. And
he left at fifteen and never came back.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
And so when he came back a year and a
half later, he just said, I got it, but I'm
still yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I mean, he says, basically he had an aha.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
You know, it was like him just kind of giving
us our flowers as parents, you know, I mean we
were talking to him every day and so, but just
that AHA moment that he had when he was about
sixteen and a half. Because I knew if you let
him go, now, Jada, he's going to come back faster,
not meaning come back into the house and live.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I knew that was over.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
He was never going to come back in that way,
but I knew that psychologically he was going to come back.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
So I say all that to say that.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
I learned quickly that each child has to be honored separately.
There's not like this cookie cutout way in which like, oh,
this is what a fifteen year old needs, this is
what a fourteen year old needs. I would never let
Willow leave the house at fifteen. Ever, Yeah, she was
not ready.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Jaden was so.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
But what if Willow had decided after that that she
wanted to leave the house.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
That would have been a different situation, right, because how
can you say one no to want I mean yes
to one and then know to the other. Because there
was a sense of responsibility that Jaden had and maturity
in that way that Willow hadn't developed yet. Now she
had her own maturity in different ways, you know, in
(19:28):
other areas, but just not that. And so as a
parent you have to be able to look at those nuances.
It's not about and I used to tell because we
talked about this Willow and I. It's not about oh,
Jaden gets to do this and you don't. It's like
whoa I'm looking at as a parent? What you have
(19:48):
more capacity for?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Right?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Where are your skill sets?
Speaker 5 (19:52):
You know, I'm not going to put you in a
place that I feel as a parent that you might not.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Be ready for.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Jaden has happened to be ready for that particular Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
There's a cute little passage in the book too, where
she talks about dropping Jaden off at school for the
first time, and he said, Mommy, why would you ever
drop me off with all these people who don't even
love me?
Speaker 7 (20:13):
Yeah, and she's like, oh, fuck, woa fuck, Well, how
am I supposed to answer that? So she says she
drops them off at school and sits in the parking
She goes, you know what, I'm going to sit here
and wait until noon until you get out.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
So she'd go there and wait for him to get
out of school. Mean, mom my, parents weren't dropping me
off or picking me up to like see you exactly?
That's amazing.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
No, I was like, you're right, somebody's always going to
be here who loves you. I'll drop you off and
I will sit in this parking lot until twelve o'clock
every day.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah. Wow, so crazy. It's just so crazy to think
kids can grow up that quickly. It's so bittersweet the
heartache that it causes.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah lots.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah. So, on a more serious note, you talk a
lot about different times life where you felt depressed, overwhelmed,
unable to function, and sometimes even suicidal. This book is
so revealing. This is exactly what a memoir should be.
(21:10):
And I think it's going to help so many people
because to know that someone like you and of your
stature and all of these wonderful things that life looks
like it is is still hard. Yeah, it doesn't make
it easy because you're rich and famous.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Right, and that's the truth.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
And you know, I think at that time when I
was when I went through one of the darkest periods
my fortieth year, when I was really suicidal, I really
had so much shame because I felt like everybody else,
I was just like, what.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Is wrong with you?
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Because my life on the outside wasn't matching how I
was feeling on the inside. And it was so funny
because my mother just finished the book and she's like,
I can't.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Believe you didn't talk about how you woke up every
morning crying.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
And I said, well, I thought it was enough for
me to just talk about me looking for a cliff
to drive off of.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
I didn't want to, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (22:06):
And she said, I got even in reading this memoir.
She said, I'm just getting so much understanding. She was like,
because everybody knew I was unhappy, but nobody knew why,
including myself. Right, so everybody's looking at me like, what
is your deal? You know, why can't you why can't
(22:26):
you be happy?
Speaker 8 (22:28):
Right?
Speaker 5 (22:29):
And so that just shut me down even more, and
I just got into a darker, darker space to the
point I was just like, I want out.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I just didn't see a way out.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
I thought I was inherently broken, inherently something was wrong
with me.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And then, by the grace of.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
God, you know, little Guru Jaden, you know, not even
knowing the state that I was in, comes into the kitchen.
He's like, you gotta listen to Moises and Matale and
hear about their father's experience and right, And so, because
my son knew I'm a seeker and like, you know,
I love different experiences, so I go into the living
(23:08):
room and I'm listening to Moisses and the Tale and
I'm like, is your father in town? I'm like, can
you call them so I can talk to them? And
as soon as their dad I saw their father, I
could just see the brightness.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I was like, this is a different guy.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
And then I started talking to him about his experience,
and I was like, I need this, I need this,
And then the universe opened up an opportunity for me
in oh Hi to be able to go and do
aya about a month and a half later and changed
my whole life. I got to see through the medicine
(23:42):
the cycle of self hatred. Oh my god, yeah, deep,
cycle of self hatred.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Deep and so and yes, And because what you talk
about is when you don't have the answers for why
you feel this way, it's almost like you're burrowing a
bigger hole within yourself. That's right, because without you know you.
I love when people call it medicine ayahuasca because it
is medicine and that's what it's for. The imagery and
the sensation that you feel when you do ayahuasca can't
(24:09):
be explained by anything else, like they're and these are
you know, it's it's spiritual. It's like there's a spirit
guide who's telling you. And you talk about all your
different experiences in this book and how many I mean
I think you've done it multiple times. I have tons,
and you get something new out of it each time.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Every time, every time.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And one of your very first experiences was so bad
and dark that I was like, what, this bitch is crazy?
And you went back and you're like, I think I
need to stay at it for the next night, which
was not even planned.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Well, yeah, because I felt like I was possessed. Let
me tell you, my kids have been life savers.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Literally.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
The only reason why I went back in is because
I was like, whatever's on me, I can't take this
to my children. That's the only reason why I went back.
If I didn't have kids, I probably I don't even know, Chelsea. Honestly,
I wouldn't have had sometimes and I realized this in life,
sometimes it's you're not your motivation and that's okay.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
You know.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
There have been times when I've had to think about
other people and most of the time my kids, and
that particular time it was about my kids.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And I went back and then I had.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
To go through yet another difficult night, but it brought me.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
To that space of resolve and light and that was
much more peaceful. And then you've continued to use it.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, I use it. I well, right after that, I
didn't do it for a year because it was terrified.
I was like, if this is.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
What this experience is I don't want to do this
ever again.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I got through.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
I'm okay, thank you, I don't want to kill myself anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Thank you, thank you for the healing.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
But then a year later I was like, I feel
like I need to go back, and so I went
back again. And then after that I started going often,
just like every three weeks.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
I was just in the room, in the room.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
And do you prefer to have that experience alone or
with other people?
Speaker 5 (26:09):
I did it for years by myself, with just me
and a guide, and.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I think I needed that, but now I really enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
But then I think you needed it too, because I mean,
look at the results. Yeah, I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It is medicine. It is so you did not kill yourself,
Thank God, because you were able to survive these terrible
bouts of depression, of self hatred, of self immolation, which
I think so many people can relate to, and so
many people feel like they're the only people in the
world feeling that way. And that's what's so heartbreaking is
that they're not alone, like no one listening. You're never alone.
(26:44):
You know, you're not the only person going through things
like this, and there are ways to survive, you know,
and if it's not plant medicine, there are other ways
to survive. You can pick up the phone and call
a hotline. You can call a suicide hotline. You can
call a family member, you can call someone who knows
to care about you. Because I also have to remember
that these feelings are never permanent. These are all temporary feelings,
and they can feel like they are going to take
(27:06):
control of you forever, but they will not. That's right, Okay,
So moving along, what was your I want to know
how did you come to the decision to write this
book at this time in your life?
Speaker 5 (27:15):
Well, it was really twenty twenty one and on this
journey to you know, self worth, Jay Shetty, who's like
a brother to me, had been by my side and
he's like, you need to write a book. And I
was like, I don't fucking want to write a book.
I don't want to write a book. And we got
into it one day and I was like, you know what, Jada,
You know, Jay's this is your brother. Just just think
(27:38):
about why he might be thinking that this is something
good for you to do. And you know, a couple
of days later, as in meditation, I was like, oh man, wow,
my journey from feeling unlovable to feeling lovable. That's a
universal journey. Most of us are on that journey. And
I was like, that's that's a worthy story. That's a
(28:00):
worthy journey to share. And I felt like I had
been through so much. I'd been through the gauntlet of
like people saying all kinds of crazy stuff about me,
and I felt like I could afford to really give
a deep, honest exploration of my journey because I don't
(28:22):
have the fear of being criticized or judged in a
certain way. Because I feel like a lot of us women,
our stories are still considered taboo to really tell the
real deal, right, and we feel like that we're going
to be dragged through the mud and that's not fun.
(28:44):
I've already been dragged through the mud, so okay, you
know what I mean. So I want to offer this
journey for those who need to be seen in a
certain manner, who might be in a hopeless place, because
I know when I was in a hopeless place, if
there had been a story like this that I could
just have some breadcrumbs, I could have oxygen. I'm like,
(29:04):
I'm not alone. This person can see me. This person
is showing me that I'm not the only This is
not a unique experience that I'm having, and I don't
have to have shame about it.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
And another reason what you're saying is striking me is
because within this book, there have been many moments where
the women in your life have come to you seeing,
you know, whether it was at your fortieth or a
different time, saying seeing that you weren't okay and actually
stepping in and how meaningful that is, which is something
that we talk about a lot on this podcast when
(29:40):
people call in, is do I get involved? Do I
say something? And a firm believer that the answer is
always yes if you are especially if you are a
woman and it's another woman, it doesn't even matter if
you're close to her or not, because that's your ego,
like just make sure every woman is okay. Like from
women women, I see something's wrong? Are you okay? And
(30:03):
the impact that that had on you, whether it was
from very close friends or not so close friends, is
you know, invaluable.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It is and it's so important.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
I'm glad that you said, even if it's someone that
you are not close to, you know, from women to
women when we understand what this journey is like on
this earthly plane, you know what I mean. And it's like,
it's a universal journey. I don't care the color of
your skin, what language you speak. We've got some universal struggles, right,
(30:34):
And so I really I'm with you. I feel like
that's part of what we're here to do as women
is to help each other, right, and part of that
is sharing our stories, you know, and being able to
use the wisdom that we collect along the way to
help others, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, And there's a lot of wisdom in the book.
And you talk very openly about your marriage with Will
and you guys are when you got married you made
a very sacred value to each other that divorce wasn't
an option.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Yeah, it was like because as you read, you know,
I wasn't interested in having like the wedding because I
was like, first of all, we're doing something really serious here.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
You know, I don't have I don't have time for
a wedding.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
You know, this is so fucking serious. Why do we
have This is a serious shit.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
I don't have time to be thinking about bridesmaids and
what fucking dress I'm wearing.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I'm about to fucking commit myself to you forever and.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I'm about to have a baby.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Like this is not what I thought my life to be, right,
And so I wanted to go to the mountaintop. I
was like, look, we need to get with God and
figure this out, Like this is serious. We got to
commit to each other in a spiritual.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Way, because you guys had a very spiritual connection from
the time you met.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, we did.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
And so when we were outside on that log in
his mother's backyard and he was talking about a prenup,
and I was just like, if we're gonna talk about
the end at the beginning, just don't marry me. I'm
not interested. I'm okay, I don't want it. And you know,
(32:19):
he was like, I get it. He was like, I
you know, I don't think we need a prenup. If
you don't think we need a prenup, we don't need
a prenup. And I said, I'm telling you we're gonna
work through everything. That was my sacred vow that day,
right and so, and he looked to me and he
said okay. And so in that moment, for me, that
(32:41):
was my mountaintop moment. That was like my moment with
God saying we I am going to We're gonna work
through everything, you know, And it's not about money and
all of that. It's about that moment of making that
commitment and that vow. And let me tell you it's
it's not an easy vow to keep because ultimately, when
(33:03):
you're talking about being with somebody forever, forever. I talked
about it in the book, you're gonna go through that
jungle together and you're gonna get to see what shows
up what doesn't show up in one another. But that's
what a marriage is, right. You're gonna have your honeymoon
stages and then you're gonna.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Have your hell stages.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
But it's just such a crack of shit that people
don't talk about that when you're getting married.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Yeah, because that's the problem, Chelsea. That's why I feel
like the ceremony is not the way you should start
a word, because it's setting you, it's setting up this fantasy. Yeah,
And I knew my marriage was not gonna be a fantasy, right.
I knew that from the gate. I didn't know then,
but that I was just gonna run into my shit that's.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Really what I was scared of.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well, I think so many of us believe that, like,
we have our shit, we have our shit, and then
some guy's gonna come along and you're like, I see
your shit, and I'm gonna take care of your shit,
and I don't worry about your shit. It's not shit
with me, right, And it's like, no, it is. It
is because it's ours.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
It's ours, and it's going to be really shitty. Yeah,
it's going to be really shitty at times. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
I wonder how many women would be able to sit
and listen to that conversation before getting married, Like, just
so you know, this isn't going to be twenty years
of bliss, right, There are gonna be many, many moments
of despair and disappointment.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yes, I wish, God, I wish. I don't mean to
be a debute. Listen. Weddings are great. I want to
start right, but I feel like.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
The marriage ceremony set up the way that it is
now gives a really false impression of what marriage is
going to be.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
You know, you have the white dress, you know, the
princess of the day.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
It's a fairy tale and I'm like, yeah, that's not
what you have moments of that, but a marriage.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
To me, and I've been learning along the way, it's
really a holy path of purification.
Speaker 6 (35:08):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
It's like there is nothing like an intimate partner to
make you have to look at your stuff and clean
it up, you know, for each person involved. And because
it's in that intimate partnership where you really get to
the nitty gritty, you really get to those buttons you
know that are the deep.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
There is like a mine field.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
And you have to have two willing participants. Yeah, because
somebody could be a seeker like yourself, and somebody could
be a nonseeker and be like, I'm not interested in
all of this, you know what I mean. I was
just on vacation with some girlfriends in my Orca and
one of my friends was telling me about her husband
and she's like, he's seeking out all the stuff. He's
seeking out all this stuff. I go, that's great, why
don't you go with him and seek it out? And
(35:52):
she's like, I have no interest in any of that.
And I was like, but you're okay for him to
go do it, right, And she's like, yeah, I just
want him to go figure his shit out and I
thought interesting because, like you know, you can have two
people who are seeking and it can cause a lot
of you know, it could be fractious, but you can
also sometimes people just need to go and be on
their own, yes, and then come back.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
That's right, and that I feel like in long term
relationships that is an inevitable passage where you have to
go on your own.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah. You talk about that in the book that you
guys have been separated for many years. Yeah, six years.
Well when you wrote the book, it was six years. Yeah,
six years, six years at the oscars. You were separated
six years at the Oscars, is what you said. Yeah,
so but you're not divorced, no, and you have no
plans to get divorced. No, So talk to us about that.
(36:48):
I'm down with it. I think this is a great
new way of thinking about marriage.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, you know, that's new. They're not getting divorced. Part,
that's new.
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Okay, Yeah, because in twenty sixteen I was definitely thinking
about it.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Oh yeah, well twenty sixteen was when Trump was elected
to I think a lot of people were thinking a
lot of things. We'll just put that on him for now, right,
But okay, so you were thinking about it. But yeah,
but you didn't take the steps to do it.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
I didn't take the steps to do it never, you know,
never sought a lawyer. But it wasn't that I wasn't
thinking about it, because I was just like, all right,
how do I do this? How do I uncouple consciously?
I don't want to do it from a place of resentment,
from a place of anger. I don't want to create
just a messy bloodshed, right, And so I was really
(37:40):
trying to figure that out, working on myself getting to.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
A place of like.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
Peaceful resolve between us, which took a lot longer than
I expected, you.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Know, several several several years.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
And then when Will finished Emancipation, a huge shit happened
in him. I think that was a really difficult movie
for him to shoot.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
A lot of stuff came up for him.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
And that was when he asked me to get back
into some therapeutic settings.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
With him, and we started.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
Doing some deep work in a way that we had
never done before. Then he got nominated and he was like, listen,
there's nobody else that I want by my side during
this time, you know, because we were still family, right,
and he was like, you know, were you do this
run with me?
Speaker 1 (38:34):
And I was like absolutely, of course, you.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Know, And what was the like? So you guys were
living separately and we were living separately.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
I had bought I had bought a house because I
really needed talking about needing to go on your separate journey.
I had gone on several separate journeys and just trying
to get to a place of happiness within myself, place
of peace and really making peace with what is, you know,
(39:04):
just like trying to detox from a romanticized version of
myself as well as the romanticized version of Will and
a romanticized version of our togetherness. Because even though I
might not have had the white wedding romantic version, I
(39:25):
had to really come to the understanding that I had
a romantic idea of what I wanted our connection to
look like.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
I wanted this masterpiece of connection between Will and I.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
Now, how do you have a masterpiece of connection with
someone else if you don't have it with yourself. And
that's what I had to learn, really detoxing from the
idea that it was his job to make me happy
because I believed I sat here and I helped you
get every fucking thing you wanted. You need to now
(40:01):
help me get the dream I wanted, which is.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Connection between us, damn it, you know.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
And I had to really recognize that that wasn't something
he could give me even if he tried, because I
wasn't willing to give it to really know, have an
intimate relationship with myself and.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
Deal with my shit.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
And so in that six years period, that's what I
had been doing. So now we're in these therapeutic settings
and we're really doing some deep work, really deep work.
And so when we got to the Oscars, we were
in a really good place, you know, and doing this
deep work together.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And then yeah, well, I think you should talk about it,
because I think people wonder what you were thinking and
what I mean, it's in the book. You talk about
it in the book. Yeah, I mean, so you don't
have to get into it. But I think you were
as surprised as anyone else.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
I was super surprised at first because he had been
going back and forth to the backstage, and I was like,
oh wow, when he got up. When Chris said what
he said, I rolled my eyes because I knew when
I first saw Chris's name as one of the presenters,
I remember saying to Will, I was like, oh no,
(41:20):
I was like, I hope he plays nice tonight. You know.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
But because Chris and I had buried our beef.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
You know, after twenty sixteen and that whole misunderstanding, he apologized.
I apologized to him. We were in a good place.
I hadn't spoken to him since, and but I just
kept thinking. I was like, ah, he's not gonna be
able to help himself, you know. And I just had
this like my bubble guts, bubble guts, And so Will
was going back and forth backstage, and then when Chris
(41:50):
said what he said, I looked to Will as to say, you.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Believe that shit right? And I wasn't.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
Upset about what Chris said about me, because I'm gonna
be okay.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
It was the idea of I had known.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
So many horrible stories about young people who had committed
suicide because they had alopecia, people who were suffering in
silence and in shame because of alopecia, and I was
just like, I was thinking about my alopecia community and
how on this world stage it was okay to make
fun of alopecia.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And then Will gets up. I'm like, is this a skit.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
He talked to Chris backstage and he didn't say anything
to me. And then Chris, how he's reacting is kind
of like, oh, here comes mister Smith. And I was like,
oh shit, this is a skit. And then from where
I'm sitting, when Will swung, it looked like Chris slipped
the shot. I didn't know he had made contact, and
especially after Chris was still standing, because I'd seen Will
(42:57):
knock professional fighters down in the ring.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
He's a heavy hitter.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, well he's trained, Yeah, he's trained.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
He's a heavy hitter.
Speaker 5 (43:06):
So when he turned around and he started coming back downstage,
I was like, oh no, this is not a joke.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Something is wrong here.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
And now I can see that Will's not necessarily in
present time. So he comes and he sits down and
I just grab his hand and I look at him
and I said.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Are you okay.
Speaker 5 (43:29):
Chris comes down to the stage and he starts speaking
to me again in the commercial break, at the commercial break,
and he says, I meant no harm. And at that time,
I was so confused and so disrupted because I'm really
worried about Will, because Will has never done anything like
this before. I don't know what's going on. I have
no idea. I don't know what's happening with him, and
(43:52):
I'm really worried about him. And I'm like, Chris, I
can't do this right now, this is about some old
shit it I can't. And then Chris, but Will's going off.
He's going off again. So Denzel comes over and he's
leaning on Will to just calm him down. Chris finishes
(44:15):
his whole thing. Denzel Bradley Cooper take care of Will,
which I'm so grateful for because I was just at
a loss.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
I was at a loss.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
And then his publicist and my publicists come over and
she's like, you know, Chris left the building. He's not
going to press charges. And I was like, press charges
for what? And she's like, Will hit Chris? And I
looked at Will and I said, you hit Chris? Actually,
you actually hit Chris And he said yeah, and I
(44:47):
said okay, and that's when I knew.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
I said, all right, I.
Speaker 5 (44:51):
Might not have walked in here as your wife, but
I'm leaving here as your wife because we're gonna have
to get through this together, you know, yeah, you know.
So that's I have to say that the oscars brought
us closer, so you know, our dynamic has because you
(45:11):
knew that he was in pain. I knew that he
was in pain. I knew that he was going through
a lot. I knew a lot that the public didn't know,
you know, because we had been in these therapeutic spaces together,
and so I knew I had to be byside. And
just because you know, everybody wants to ride in the limo,
(45:32):
that's real talk, right, and that's it was this moment
when I really realized that next level of commitment and love,
because this is about us walking each other home.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
This is about.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
Us helping each other heal, walking each other to those
sacred places within as well as those sacred places without,
where I had to get really deep resolved around that's
what the journey's about, and that we are two people
that came into this relationship at a very young age
(46:10):
with a lot of trauma and thus not having a
lot of information our traumas, how we acted our traumas
out on one another, you know, and just learning how
not to take that personally, and just realizing that we're
walking each other home and that that's about being able
(46:33):
to hold each other's hands in those dark caves with
the Grimlins and the Gargoyles and you know, all of
the monsters.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Right when you say everyone wants to ride in the limo,
not everybody wants to ride when there's no limo.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
Nobody wants to Nobody wants to go in the Haunted
House on the Spooky Bus.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
And I mean it couldn't be more true. Yeah, I
mean everybody knows that. I mean, when you're a celebrity that,
I mean, it's great for celebration and then then when
something goes wrong, you look around and you're like.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Well fuck yeah, it's like everybody.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, So may I ask you what the status is
now of you guys? What's your relationship?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
You're still married, We're still married.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Got that going, Yeah, we got that going.
Speaker 5 (47:16):
And we've really been concentrating on just that healing component together, yeah,
and taking it one day at a time, Chelsea, trying
to figure it out, you know.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
I mean, yeah, very very admirable, very at your honesty
and yeah, it's very I'm really just blown away by
it and I love it. I mean, it's just good
for the world.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah, because that's what life is.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
That you know, this idea that these perfect picture you know, you.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Know, you look at like from my perspective, I remember
watching that night thinking what's going on with him? Like,
that's not who he is? What's happening to him? He
must be going through something either with you, with his person.
I mean, it's never about another person only. It's about
everything we've experienced through our lives, and it is our
trauma revisiting us. And when it's not, you know, we
(48:07):
become self actualized when we dig deep and find out
what really happened and why our behaviors are.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
The way they are and why.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
You know. But I remember thinking that that's not who he.
Speaker 5 (48:16):
Is, right, which is why I understood why people thought,
you know, with me putting out or assisting in that
false narrative of me being this adulterous wife, which was
not true, why people automatically thought Jade is the problem.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Oh yeah, we skipped over all that, that whole part,
because I just don't even think that's worth mentioning, because
that's really not right. I mean, it is because it's
part of your story, but that's not part. It's there's
so much more there than that, and I think it's
important to remember and recognize when people are in pain,
because when people are acting in pain, that is not
who they are. And I don't know Will personally, but
(48:55):
I can imagine that he's a very very loving, decent
human being, so loving, and I've heard that a million times,
and so is Chris Rock. Chris, he really is.
Speaker 5 (49:05):
And that's why, you know, even when people ask me,
you know about Chris and all this stuff he said
on Netflix what have you, and I'm like, you know what,
when people are hurting, that's.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Not that's not they're true, that's not their true right.
Speaker 5 (49:18):
So that's not even Chris on that stage, honestly, Like
with all the things.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
That he said, I you mean it in his special
in his special right.
Speaker 5 (49:26):
And because I've had the opportunity to spend time with Chris,
I've seen that part of Chris, you know what I mean.
And I know I know what his eyes looked like
that night when he said to me, I meant no harm.
And I know that to be true to this day,
even with that special he I know he meant no harm. Yeah,
(49:47):
you know right, No, He's just you know, it's just
that hurt place in us. And you know, I've been
there when I'm hurt things that I've done and things
that I've said out of that hurt place.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
It's not me.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
What did Willow have to say about reading the book?
Speaker 5 (50:04):
She just you know, first of all, she's an avid reader,
so she just finds me fascinating, which is awesome, you
know what I mean, because she's like a cool kid,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
She finds you and a Gammy.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Yeah she's at Yeah, she really does.
Speaker 5 (50:19):
So she's enjoyed it. She just can't believe the life
that I've lived, you.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Know, because I've told her stories.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
I can't believe that.
Speaker 5 (50:27):
You know, but then reading it open, it's like mom
mad and you're out here worried about me doing the thing.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
I can't believe you.
Speaker 5 (50:33):
I didn't give you half the problems you gave gam
you know.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Like, so, yeah, she's had a good time. I'm reading it.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Well, this podcast was supposed to take callers, but you
know what, why don't we just leave this as a
special episode. Yeah that's not because this was a very
powerful conversation, and I think I think it is just
such strong messaging. A you know, when you talk about
a woman putting out all of her stuff, it's not
done as much as it's done by men, and when
it is done by men, it's not as emotionally at
(51:06):
the surface. Like you're reading this book and you were like,
it will bring your emotions to the surface on behalf
of what it means to be a woman and all
the pressure. But the reason why women don't do this
is because when they write the truth like this, and
so many times we're thought of as so fierce or
so hard, you know, And when you go through the history,
if you think of people like Belle Hooks or you
(51:26):
think of Gloria Steinem and the way that they were
perceived rather than just because they were truth tellers. It's
so nice to see more women saying, no, this is
my truth, this is the hard core nature of what's happening,
and this is what's happened in my life. And to
know how many lives each one of us has led
you to know how crazy it is you know that
(51:49):
you could be I mean from coming from Baltimore and
doing all of the things that you've done, but having
an inner compass and a north star in a sense
that you're still here thriving, and you're sitting across from me,
and you're beautiful inside and out thank you, And I
just think it's a victory and I feel all women
should be sharing their stories in this way and to
(52:11):
be louder and prouder of who we all are. There
you go, because it's not just men's stories that are important.
This is how we help heel each other, and this
is how we all kind of come together and give
each other room to make mistakes and grow. And you're
still there and you're still filled with love, you know, definitely,
And amen to that, you guys. I mean, that's our
(52:32):
podcast for the day.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Love it, Love you.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Okay. The book is called Worthy. You're gonna get it
and you're gonna thank me, and it's by Jada Pinkett Smith.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Second shows have been added for those of you coming
to see my new stand up tour, which you have
to come because I'm having the best time. We added
a second show into Cincinnati, Los Angeles, which is actually
October thirteenth. There are still tickets for October thirteenth show
in Los Angeles. We added second shows in Chicago, the
Chicago Theater, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco. They're both almost completely
(53:06):
sold out. Detroit, Michigan, and then we added a second
show in Cincinnati in the daytime at five o'clock PM.
I'm doing my first show because I don't have a
night where I can go back, so we added a
second show at five PM, and the original show is
at eight PM. Original show is sold out. Second show
tickets are available Cincinnati. I'm also coming to Cleveland on
(53:27):
October twentieth, and then I'll be in Columbus October twenty
first and Pittsburgh October twenty second. So those three shows
I still have tickets available, And you can go to
Chelsea Hamler dot com for other tickets and other information.
And if you want to buy some of our merch,
that's all available on Chelseahandler dot com. And yeah, guys,
(53:48):
I'll see you on the road.
Speaker 8 (53:50):
If you'd like advice from Chelsea, shoot us an email
at Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com and be
sure to include your phone number. Dear Chelsea is edited
and engineered by executive producer Katherine Law and be sure
to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot com.
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