Jaden Smith is always full of surprises — and it turns out his birth was no different.
Jada Pinkett Smith, 46, sat down with NBC’s Megyn Kelly on TODAY, where she revealed that Jaden, her first child with Will Smith, “wasn’t planned.”
“My life changed quickly,” said the actress. “There was a lot of adjustment to make. At that particular time, Will’s career was just taking off and somebody has to hold the fort down at home. It was very challenging and trying to figure out who I was supposed to be in this new life.”
Pinkett Smith also became a stepmom to Will’s son Trey, now 25, when they married, and two years later, Willow, now 17, was born.
In addition to putting her film career on hold, Pinkett Smith said she felt as if she had “given up my freedom and the lifestyle I had been used to.”
Looking back on how her life changed, Smith said, “I think that I let a lot of that old Jada go that I didn’t have to. It was my idea of what a mother should be, what I thought being in a family, or being in a partnership was supposed to look like. Instead of looking at myself and going, ‘What it is that I need to make me happy within this new lifestyle.’ ”
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Pinkett Smith said her life improved “once I started to take responsibility for what would make me happy.” She added, “Having the courage to step outside all the boxes that people thought I should sit within, I got a lot more happy.”
Asked how it feels to be “back in the saddle” with the success of her recent hit film Girls Trip and popular Facebook Watch show Red Table Talk, Pinkett Smith said, “It feels good, it really does. It feels good to be able to have my family and myself, along with just my life outside of my family as well.”
She added, “It feels good to just feel more of a whole woman. And of course I’m still on the journey to complete that but I feel like I have more of who I truly am.”
