Jada Pinkett Smith's 'Worthy' is a Cinderella story written all wrong
Jada Pinkett Smith's 'Worthy' is a Cinderella story written all wrong
SPOILER ALERTS! Everything is not Jada Pinkett Smith's fault, but she sure has a problem admitting when it is
Imagine somebody gave Cinderella a book deal to tell her story. The reader leaps to buy Cinderella’s book, and is all set to find out what it was like for her to meet the Prince (pun intended). Meanwhile, she writes 198 pages of a 416-page book about what happened before the fairy godmother showed up. Instead of readers hearing about that coach ride or the glass slipper, she thought cleaning the house was more entertaining.
She wrote about the equivalent of birds, mice and that cat, telling readers ALL KINDS OF STORIES about background characters. (I’ll give you a free month’s subscription if you can give me the name of one of Cinderella’s pets without using Google to remember. You know why you can’t? We don’t care.) And then just when we thought we were getting to the golden carriage ride, she skipped past the horses and started talking about the pumpkin ride again.
That's how I felt reading each and every word of Jada Pinkett Smith’s drug dealing chapters. She even described the neighborhood she sold in and why she peed her pants. Why would any reader give a damn about this?
More Gam, Less Tupac
It’s not that I didn’t want to hear about Jada Pinkett Smith’s life “before midnight.” I would’ve loved to have read more about her childhood, especially how she was able to handle Gam's drug abuse and then survival. Instead, Gam was barely mentioned other than Jada describing Gam prioritizing date night and finding a new man. Just about every chapter with Gam felt like she was on a rotation of date nights. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting on Jada’s date night to hurry up and happen!
ADVERTISEMENT: My favorite bookmarks: Genuine Fred Magic Sprout, Mini-Mushroom Bookmarks
Then clear out of nowhere, her mother was just randomly off drugs. Readers got detailed play-by-plays of her cutting school, but Gam was sort of a mystery throughout the read. “Red Table Talk" fans have learned more about Gam from Facebook than you'll ever get from “Worthy,” other than Jada insisting she was manipulated by her mother to have a traditional wedding. Readers got a sprinkle here and there about her grandparents, but other than learning how to clean bathrooms, what did we learn from them? Not much either.
Recommended Read: “You will NOT make Jada Pinkett Smith the villain for Oscars 2022 ~ Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, not Jada Pinkett Smith”
You know who readers did hear a lot about? Tupac. Always Tupac. There was an excessive amount of reminders that Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac didn't have sexual chemistry and could never date. (Nobody asked them to, no matter how vocal she was about why the movie “All Eyez on Me” wasn’t accurate. Even Afeni Shakur doesn’t talk about her own son this much.) Unless you’ve been snuggled up under a rock, no one should be surprised by the amount of times Tupac came up in the book though. Even from the photo collage of family-friendly pics with Will Smith and her children, the only sultry picture is Jada with her leg hiked up near Tupac’s hip.
Then when readers FINALLY get anything more than Tupac (yet again) rapping a Fresh Prince song, she managed to bring Tupac up after jail and on Death Row Records. ENOUGH WITH TUPAC! My gawd. I had two longtime platonic friends for over a decade. I even had a dream about one after he died, but even I don’t talk about them this much. I can't wrap my mind around how a teenage-to-adult friend who died in 1996 got more attention than the man she married for almost 26 years.
Recommended Read: “I’m not saying I agree with Will Smith … but I understand ~ Will Smith smacks Chris Rock for alopecia joke”
Marrying the Prince, Becoming a Smith
Her book tour would make you think there was a helluva lot more about Will Smith in her book than there is. Not even close. It’s 75/25 Tupac versus Will, as is the case in pretty much any interview she’s done over the years. The Academy Award chapter was so far near the end of the book that you wouldn’t even expect to read it at all, more of an afterthought, claimed she was "ride or die" after the slap but then said Will should "fight his own fight.” (This was the second time in “Worthy” where Jada Pinkett Smith used the phrase “ride-or-die” all wrong; in the first one, her friend almost got pistol whipped while she stood there watching.) She was more upset about Suge handing her Tupac’s urn than Will Smith putting his whole career on the line to defend her.
Recommended Read: “Chris Rock: Women-hating men will never understand Will Smith ~ Why ‘Selective Outrage’ further confirms Chris Rock is bitter about women”
Her analysis of what led to the long-standing beef between Will Smith and Chris Rock amounted to her saying there aren’t enough therapists to figure it out. Seriously. That was her way of trying to explain Will Smith’s pent-up anger toward the comedian. She didn’t even slightly try to make sense of this startling outburst. (If you read “Will,” the actor-rapper is not shy about admitting he was scrappy during his rapping years. This is not his first fight. Still, he always had an explanation of what led to blows or an apology for where he went wrong. I refuse to believe a “therapist” is the only way to explain his long-standing beef with Chris Rock.)
Meanwhile, without anyone asking, she gave a whole explanation of how she felt about Tupac’s criminal/rape charge. The most peculiar part of that chapter was she oddly cut Tupac off before he could explain why he was innocent. What female friend does not want to hear her male friend explain how he didn’t rape someone? Who interrupts someone in the middle of that kind of confession?
No therapist crew was needed for her to complain about Tupac joining Death Row nor their special bond. She gave detailed play-by-plays of him asking for her hand in marriage and kissing her on the mouth when she visited him in prison, all while still telling readers “we’re just friends.” (Side note: I read "Inside a Thug's Heart" when the book first released. Tupac did not mention Jada nearly as much or at all throughout this entire book, if memory serves me correctly.)
The one good chapter in the whole book
When it came to Will Smith, we got almost nothing complimentary about him other than that he pursued her twice — before he was legally divorced and immediately after the papers were signed. I finally thought I was going to get a glass slipper section when she went on a vacation with Will Smith, Duane Martin and Tisha Campbell. Jada had picked a fight with Will Smith (again) and ended up drunkenly leaping off of a roof into a pool to prove her love. I read that story three times and cackled. Finally, I was ready to add her book to Shamontiel’s Bookshelf.
That didn’t last long. She went right back to complaining about him soon after. She had a whole story griping about an exterminator and why Will should come home to rescue her. If I only knew of Will Smith through her book, I’d swear he had no redeeming qualities.
Recommended Read: “When black men protect black women ~ Overlooking the larger request from the #ProtectBlackWomen hashtag after the Will Smith slap”
I genuinely wanted to enjoy this book and continue to be Jada Pinkett Smith’s unpaid, unsolicited attorney/publicist. I was arguing for at least two weeks, defending her and applauding Will Smith for defending his (separated) wife at the Oscars. But I read Will Smith's book the day it came out in 2021, and it feels like he has far more respect for Jada Pinkett Smith than vice versa. Every single time she complained about something he did (minus the grandmother intro chapter in which he was 100% wrong), I never understood her side. It didn't feel like Will Smith was wrong; it just felt like he didn't do exactly what she was trying to force him to do. When Tupac rebelled, she compromised. With Will Smith, it always seemed like the worst violation ever.
I don't know if ayahuasca can cure bossiness. (And I say that as someone who is bossy.) All I know is I’m skipping over J. Cole’s “'that Jada and that Will love” whenever I hear “No Role Modelz” on my playlist. Minus that pool jump, I really wondered why Will Smith doesn’t serve her papers. I know he despises the idea of divorce, but how much ridicule can one person take?
I tried to like this book. I just didn't. I finished it out of stubbornness. The only good that came from it was making me dig up Will Smith’s again so I could smile while reading again.
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “BlackTechLogy,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color,” “One Black Woman’s Vote,” “Tickled,” “We Need To Talk” and “Window Shopping” too. Subscribe to this newsletter for the monthly posts on the third Thursday.
If you’re not ready to subscribe but want to support my writing, you’re welcome to tip me for this post! I’ll buy a dark hot chocolate on you. Thanks for reading!