Jada Pinkett Smith Talks The Jordyn Woods Interview That Almost Didn’t Happen, Feeling ‘Depleted’ In Marriage To Will Smith And More In New Interview

Jada Pinkett-Smith isn’t holding back in her new interview with PEOPLE.

In this week’s cover story, the ’Red Table Talk’ host reveals new details about the show’s most-watched episode to date and bouncing back after one the lowest points in her marriage to Will Smith.

Pinkett Smith told PEOPLE that despite their personal relationship, she was hesitant to sit down with Jordyn Woods back in March, amidst rumors that the young model had an affair with Khloe Kardashian’s boyfriend, Tristan Thompson. In fact, it took convincing from both Woods and Pinkett-Smith’s husband, Smith. 

“Jordyn really felt like it was the only safe place that she could do that interview,” Pinkett Smith told PEOPLE.

“It actually wasn’t something I wanted to do because it was very close [to home], but as time transpired, Jordyn was just like, ‘I really need you in this platform’ and Will felt like it was supremely important. So I was like, okay, let’s do it.”

In the emotional episode, Pinkett-Smith said she’d known Jordyn “her whole life” and the Smiths and Woods have become like family over the years. 

Pinkett-Smith said she intended to give Woods a much needed “platform” to tell her side of the story and “help young girls navigate through life, through difficult situations we’ve all come across.”

As for her personal life, Pinkett-Smith opened up to PEOPLE about her family and how she bounced back from a breaking point in her 21-year marriage to Smith. 

According to the actress, there were times she felt overwhelmed with their busy careers and expectations of how to be a great wife and mother. Pinkett-Smith felt the family wasn’t getting the “attention and care” they so desperately needed and even contemplated taking her own life. 

“By the time my 40th [birthday] came, I was like, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ I was so depleted,” she said. 

The 47-year-old mother of two realized that the only way for her to ”redefine” her relationship was for her to “redefine” herself. She said she took the time out to focus on “Jada” for the first time, in a long time, and regained faith that her marriage would prevail. 

“I just knew with the kind of love that Will and I share — which is beyond romantic love — that we could transform our union and figure out how to re-create what we had,” she said.

Pinkett-Smith said that the last few years in her marriage to Will have been some of the best, and even credited the Red Table Talk for giving her life a new meaning.

“The journey between Will and me… we have come to such a beautiful place,” she said. “I feel like we have a stronger bond than we even had in the beginning,” she told PEOPLE.

Retonjah Burdette

Retonjah Burdette is a publicist and published content curator from Atlanta, Georgia. After receiving her Bachelor’s in Public Relations from Georgia Southern University in 2017, Burdette then went on to get field experience with one of the top entertainment PR firms in Atlanta. Since the start of her career, Burdette has worked with a number of actors, authors, entrepreneurs and independent artists. She has secured placements on media outlets such as TV One’s Sister Circle, Good Day Atlanta on FOX, V-103, CBS 46, Kontrol Magazine, KISS 104.1 and Rolling Out to name a few. In addition to her growth in PR, she is currently a writer for Baller Alert, a top platform for news and entertainment. In hopes of bringing the visions of others to life, she launched Girl Avant-Garde in 2019, a creative agency specializing in innovative content, branding and PR in entertainment. Her overall goal is to have autonomy over her creative thought process and to teach branding to new entrepreneurs and others pursuing a career in the public eye.

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