Jada Pinkett Smith Biography

Jada Koren Pinkett Smith, née Pinkett, is an American actress and talk show host. She was born on September 18, 1971. She is a co-host of the Red Table chat chat program on Facebook Watch, for which she won a Daytime Emmy. In 2021, Time magazine listed her as one of the 100 most important persons in the world.

In 1991, the sitcom A Different World gave Pinkett Smith her big break. She then went on to star in movies like Menace II Society (1993), The Nutty Professor (1996), Set It Off (1996), and Scream 2 (1997) before making a significant impact on The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), and the Madagascar cartoon pictures. With starring roles on Hawthorne (2009–2011) and Gotham (2014–2017), she made her return to television. She has also appeared in Bad Moms (2016), Girls Trip (2017), Magic Mike XXL (2015), and The Matrix Resurrections (2021).

Pinkett Smith began her musical career in 2002 when she joined the nu metal band Wicked Wisdom as the lead singer and lyricist. Girls Hold Up This World, a children’s book she released in 2004, debuted at number two on The New York Times Best Seller list.[3] She owns a production company with her husband Will Smith, and she has producing credentials in movies, documentaries, and television shows. She was a producer for the Broadway production of Fela! when it received a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical in 2010.

Jada Pinkett Smith Early life

Jada Koren Pinkett, who was born in Baltimore, Maryland, was given her mother’s preferred soap opera star, Jada Rowland, as a middle name. On her mother’s side, she is of Jamaican and Bajan ancestry, while on her father’s, she is of African American ancestry. Adrienne Banfield-Norris, the clinic’s head nurse in Baltimore’s inner city, and Robsol Pinkett Jr., a former construction executive, are her parents. When Banfield-Norris found out she was pregnant in high school, the pair got hitched but separated soon after. Pinkett was brought up by her mother and her Jamaican-born social worker grandmother, Marion Martin Banfield.

She remarked, “My grandma was a doer who wanted to build a better neighborhood and give beauty to the world. Banfield enrolled her granddaughter in piano, tap dance, and ballet courses after observing her affinity for the performing arts.

Rapper Tupac Shakur was a classmate of Pinkett’s at the Baltimore School for the Arts, when she first met him and grew close to him. Pinkett was a narcotics dealer when she first met Shakur.Her mother had a history of heroin addiction. She graduated in 1989 with a degree in theater and dance. She studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts for a year following graduation.

Jada Pinkett Smith Film and television career

Early career (1990–1996)

In 1990, Pinkett made her acting debut as the lead in a True Colors episode. She appeared as a guest on television programs like Doogie Howser, M.D. (1991) and 21 Jump Street (1991). In 1991, she was cast as Lena James, a college freshman, in Bill Cosby’s NBC sitcom A Different World.

Pinkett made her cinematic debut in 1993’s Menace II Society. Her friend Tupac Shakur, who was supposed to play the single mother Ronnie in the movie before he was dismissed, recommended her for the role. Shakur persuaded Pinkett to keep the part after she had considering leaving the movie after his departure.

In the action and comedy movie A Low Down Dirty Shame from 1994, Pinkett Smith starred alongside Keenen Ivory Wayans. Positive compliments were given to her acting, which she described as “raw” and “major attitude” in reference to her character Peaches. As described by The New York Times, “Ms. Pinkett, whose performance is as sassy and sizzling as a Salt-N-Pepa recording, walks away with the movie.” Alongside Allen Payne, she played the titular role in Doug McHenry’s love drama Jason’s Lyric in 1994.

Roger Ebert praised the movie and stated that “[Payne] has powerful chemistry with the enigmatic, teasing, tender character played by Pinkett; they really seem to like one another, which is not always a feeling you pick up in screen romances.” She also appeared in the romantic comedy-drama The Inkwell that same year.

Pinkett as a prisoner on work release in the 1995 slasher movie Demon Knight. Larenz Tate claims that Pinkett was scheduled to play Delilah in the 1995 movie Dead Presidents, but she declined the part out of loyalty to Shakur. Shakur had been sacked from Menace II Society by the Hughes brothers, who also directed the movie.

In 1995, Pinkett also started making music videos. She was the director of the girl group Y? N-Vee’s “I’m Going Down” music video. Along with acting in it, she also directed Gerald Levert’s “How Many Times” music video. “Another single was released in place of the music video that Pinkett was supposed to direct for the song “Can U Get Away” by Shakur. Pinkett created the idea for his “California Love” music video, which she had originally planned to direct but dropped out of.[26] Pinkett directed the “Keep On, Keepin’ On” music video by MC Lyte ft. Xscape in 1996.

Rise to prominence (1996–2002)

In the 1996 version of The Nutty Professor, Pinkett co-starred with actor and comedian Eddie Murphy as the love interest of a sympathetic university professor who is extremely fat. The movie was a financial hit; it brought in $25 million in its first weekend in North America and $274 million overall. In Set It Off (1996), a criminal drama about four women who rob banks to get out of poverty, she co-starred with Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise in the lead part. The San Francisco Chronicle praised her acting in the movie and called her “the one to watch” Set It Off, which had a $9 million budget, generated $41 million worldwide.

In the 1997 film Scream 2, Pinkett played a college student who was brutally killed in front of a large audience. At the North American box office, the movie brought in more than $100 million. She starred alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Vince Vaughn in the drama Return to Paradise in 1998 and co-starred with Tommy Davidson in the comedy Woo as the title character, an outgoing woman.

Derek Armstrong of AllMovie praised her performance in Woo but noted that the storyline was “formulaic” and “not much of a vehicle for its impish starlet.” She then acted as the main character’s personal assistant in Damon Wayans’ role in Spike Lee’s 2000 film Bamboozled. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the movie was given the National Board of Review’s Freedom of Expression Award.

In the modestly popular comedy Kingdom Come from 2001, which also starred LL Cool J, Vivica A. Fox, Anthony Anderson, Toni Braxton, and Whoopi Goldberg, Pinkett Smith played a loud-mouthed wife. She plays Sonji Roi, the first wife of boxer Muhammad Ali, in the 2001 biographical sports film Ali with Will Smith. Although she was happy with the outcome, she did not initially think she was the right fit for the part because “I felt like because we were a couple off screen, for people to see us together on the screen in a movie like this, would take people out of the movie, that people would see Will and Jada there—they wouldn’t see Ali and Sonji”

Commercial success (2003–2017)

The part of human rebel Niobe in the 2003 sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, as well as the associated computer game Enter The Matrix (2003), may be her most well-known role to date. Pinkett Smith was explicitly thought of when creating the character. After filming her parts for Ali, Pinkett Smith immediately took a plane to Australia to begin production on the Matrix sequels. nearly the course of their North American opening weekends, the sequels made nearly $91 million and $48 million, respectively.

Alongside Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise, Pinkett Smith portrayed a US Justice Department prosecutor who was the target of a contract killer in the 2004 neonoir thriller Collateral. The movie received positive reviews and did well financially, earning $217.8 million worldwide. She provided the voice of Gloria, a charming but tough and self-assured hippopotamus, in the computer-animated movie Madagascar. Tom McGrath, one of the film’s directors, claimed that after listening to her voice, they discovered all these characteristics. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the movie was a financial success, grossing $532 million globally, and emerging as one of 2005’s biggest hits.

She starred alongside Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland in the drama Reign Over Me in 2007 as the wife of a wealthy dentist. According to Entertainment Weekly, Pinkett Smith was “graceful” in the weird, black-and-blue therapeutic drama that was “equally mottled with likeable good intentions and agitating clumsiness.”

In the all-female comedy The Women from 2008, Pinkett Smith played a lesbian author opposite Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Debra Messing, and Eva Mendes.

Pinkett Smith received a nomination for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for her portrayal in The Women, which received negative reviews from critics despite its box office success. In the 2008 drama The Human Contract, which she also wrote and played in alongside Paz Vega and Idris Elba as the sister of a wealthy but unhappy businessman, she made her directorial debut. In May 2008, it made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival. In the 2008 follow-up Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which brought in US$603 million overseas thanks to the success of Madagascar, Pinkett Smith reprised her role as Gloria.

Hawthorne, a TNT medical drama that debuted on June 16, 2009, featured Pinkett Smith as a Chief Nursing Officer and served as the show’s executive producer. According to USA Today, Pinkett Smith’s portrayal of Hawthorne is not the only one who is worn out. Every character and circumstance fits the description of being excruciatingly predictable. On August 16, 2011, after three seasons, Hawthorne came to an end. As the producer of the Broadway production of Fela, she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2010.

She voiced Gloria once again in Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012), which brought in over US$746 million. She also performed the role in Merry Madagascar (2009), a television holiday special, and Madly Madagascar (2013), a direct-to-DVD movie.

In the FOX crime thriller Gotham, which premiered in 2014, Pinkett Smith played Gotham City criminal Fish Mooney. In the second and third seasons of the show, she frequently made appearances. Alongside Channing Tatum and Joe Manganiello, she played the manager of a celebrity stripper club in the comedy Magic Mike XXL in 2015. The movie brought around $122.5 million USD globally. She played the sidekick to a tyrannical parent-teacher association president in the 2016 comedy Bad Moms alongside Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Christina Applegate. The acting and humor were lauded by critics, but they weren’t sure it could “take full advantage of its assets” and gave it mixed reviews. Despite this, the movie brought in more than US$183.9 million.

In the 2017 comedy Girls Trip, which also starred Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, and Tiffany Haddish, Pinkett Smith played a nurse and a rigid mother. The movie earned over US$140 million globally, including over US$100 million domestically, making it the first comedy of 2017 to accomplish so. Time magazine named it one of its top ten movies of 2017. Pinkett Smith made an appearance at the Essence Festival in July 2017 and spoke with Queen Latifah on the Empowerment Stage. As a trait that she says is uncommon in Hollywood, Pinkett Smith praised the ensemble for embodying their characters in real life and noting that they are all women who love other women and try to support one another.

Later career (2018–present)

The discussion show Red Table discussion, which covers a variety of issues, is hosted by Pinkett Smith, her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and her daughter Willow Smith as of May 2018. Maeve McDermott of USA Today commended the show for its “insightful guests, no-holds-barred topics, and Smith’s magnetic hosting presence” in a favorable review. Pinkett Smith and her co-hosts were chosen by comedian Tiffany Haddish for Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021. Red Table conversation received a Daytime Emmy Award in 2021 for “outstanding informative talk show.”

African Queens on Netflix is narrated and produced by Pinkett Smith. While the second season’s focus was on Ptolemaic Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII, the first season was on Njinga, Queen of Ndongo, and Queen of Matamba.

Jada Pinkett Smith Musical career

In 2002, Pinkett Smith founded the metal group Wicked Wisdom under the guise of Jada Koren. Lead vocalist Pinkett Smith leads the group, which also includes guitarist Pocket Honore, keyboardist Cameron “Wirm” Graves, and bassist Rio. James Lassiter and Miguel Melendez of Overbrook Entertainment, a business Will Smith and Pinkett Smith co-founded, manage the band.

On February 21, 2006, Pinkett Smith’s production business 100% Womon and Suburban Noize Records jointly published the band’s self-titled debut album. The project’s executive producer was Will Smith. The album appeared on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers chart, where it peaked the week of March 11, 2006, at number 44. Pinkett Smith demonstrates her vocal mastery on the album, according to AllMusic reviewer Alex Henderson, and “[Wicked Wisdom] shows considerable promise.” In order to promote the album, the group went on tour with Sevendust in 2006.

Onyx Hotel Tour

In 2004, one of the most well-known tours of the year, Britney Spears’ Onyx Hotel Tour, Wicked Wisdom was given a spot. During the European leg of the tour in April and May 2004, the band supported Spears on eight of the dates.

Ozzfest 2005

In 2005, Sharon Osbourne attended a tiny Los Angeles nightclub performance by Wicked Wisdom. “I was blown away,” she exclaimed. It is clear that Jada has nothing but love and admiration for this musical genre when you see and hear her perform with her band. Organisers of 2005’s Ozzfest confirmed in May that Wicked Wisdom would play on the second stage. Pinkett Smith responded to inquiries regarding the band’s participation in Ozzfest by saying, “I’m not here looking for any favors. You must provide evidence and proof. Additionally, not all audiences will support it.

The tour’s early dates were rough, but according to guitarist Pocket Honore of Wicked Wisdom, “once word got out that we weren’t a joke, people started coming out and by the sixth or seventh gig we were on fire.” After seven gigs on the Ozzfest tour, Pinkett Smith concurred, adding, “Once the word of mouth started spreading, the whole attitude of it started to flip around.

Jada Pinkett Smith Other ventures

Business

In 1994, Pinkett Smith founded her own clothing line, Maja, after founding her music business, 100% Women Productions. Women’s T-shirts and skirts with the phrase “Sister Power” are part of the clothing line, which is mostly distributed through tiny catalogs.

The 2003 UPN/The CW television program All of Us was co-created by Pinkett Smith and Smith. Girls Hold Up This World, Pinkett Smith’s debut children’s book, was released in 2004. “I wrote the book for Willow, her pals, and all the young girls who need encouragement about being female in this largely male-dominated world. I worked very hard to depict the various facets of womanhood. I want all females to feel strong and realize they have the ability to affect change in the world anyway they see fit.

Pinkett Smith joined a long list of famous people who contributed a combined $10 million in 2005 to Lisa Price’s brand of cosmetics called Carol’s Daughter. She was chosen to represent the cosmetics line and stated, “To be a part of another African American woman’s dream was just priceless to me.”

The Smith couple contributed to the founding of an energy storage business in 2015.

Jada Pinkett Smith Philanthropy

Pinkett Smith presided over the Million Woman March in Philadelphia in 1997 as its emcee.

In Baltimore, Maryland, Pinkett Smith and Will Smith established the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports families and urban youngsters. The executive director of the foundation is Karen Banfield Evans, her aunt. The American Screenwriters Association (ASA) presented the charity with the David Angell Humanitarian Award in 2006. Pinkett Smith has personally donated to charities like Capital K-9s and the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation has given funding to nonprofits like YouthBuild.

Pinkett Smith and Will Smith gave $20,000 to the Hollywood Education and Literacy Program (HELP), the foundation for Scientology’s homeschooling, after getting to know Tom Cruise while Collateral (2004) was being filmed.

In 2006, Pinkett Smith gave $1 million to the Baltimore School for the Arts, the high school she attended, and named the new theater in honor of Tupac Shakur, a classmate and close friend.

The Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, in collaboration with the Lupus Foundation of America and Maybelline, held the first annual “Butterflies Over Hollywood” event on September 29, 2007, at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles in response to Pinkett Smith’s aunt Karen Banfield Evans’ lupus diagnosis. For LFA’s public and professional educational activities, money was raised at the event. At the 4th Annual Lupus Foundation of America Awards in 2007, the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation received a prize.

Pinkett Smith submitted a letter to the mayor of Baltimore in 2012 on behalf of PETA requesting that the touring Ringling Brothers Circus “comply with Baltimore’s absolute prohibition of the use of devices such as bullhooks” and not inflict any damage on the elephants. She had an appearance in a Gucci “Chime for Change” commercial video in 2013 that aimed to generate money and awareness for women’s concerns around the world.

Jada Pinkett Smith Personal life

While attending Duke University in the early 1990s, Pinkett Smith dated former basketball player Grant Hill.

When they were both students at the Baltimore City School for the Arts, Pinkett Smith and musician Tupac Shakur were close. She appeared in his “Temptations” (1995) and “Keep Ya Head Up” (1993) music videos. Additionally, she came up with the idea and had planned to direct his “California Love” (1995) music video, but she later dropped out. She gave Shakur $100,000 for his bail in 1995 while he was awaiting an appeal on his sexual abuse conviction.

In the 2003 film Tupac: Resurrection, Pinkett Smith referred to Tupac as “one of my best pals. Like a brother, he was. For us, it went beyond friendship. You only experience a relationship like ours once in a lifetime.

Pinkett Smith revealed that she suffered alopecia areata, an autoimmune condition, in 2018. She claimed that despite undergoing a number of medical tests, she has been unable to identify the source of her alopecia and that she believes stress may be to blame. In December 2021, she posted a video of herself on Instagram with her head shaved and the caption, “Now at this point, I can only laugh” (…) “Mama’s gonna have to take it down to the scalp so nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something.” I’m going to be friends with this alopecia, period.

Jada Pinkett Smith Family

A mother-daughter relationship is typically the most honest, and Pinkett Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris have stayed close. She also stated, “A mother and daughter’s relationship is usually the most honest, and we are so close.” She continued, “[My mother] always supported me and understood what I wanted.” She took part in Banfield-Norris’s 1998 nuptials to telecoms executive Paul Jones as the maid of honor.

When she attended an audition for the part of his character’s girlfriend, Lisa Wilkes, on Smith’s television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1994, she ran into Will Smith. Nia Long, an actress, was given the part because she was deemed to be too short. After Will and Sheree Fletcher split up, they later started dating. Will had previously become attracted to Jada but had refrained from acting on it. Jada subsequently relocated to California from her homeland of Baltimore to be with him. About 100 people attended their wedding at The Cloisters, close to Jada’s hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, on December 31, 1997, while she was three months pregnant.

Jada stated in an interview that she and her husband are “private people” and added, “I will throw away my career before I let it break up our marriage. Will understood what I meant. I’d entirely discard it. Through their joint production firm, Overbrook Entertainment and Westbrook Inc., the couple makes movies.

Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born 1998) and Willow Camille Reign Smith (born 2000) are their two children. Trey Smith, her husband’s child from a previous marriage, also calls her stepmother. Regarding their parenting methods, Will said in 2008: “We’re not strict, but we absolutely believe it’s a very vital component for raising children. It gives them a sense of safety. They are aware that they require direction. The family lives in a 27,000 square foot (2,500 m2) property in Malibu that is situated on 100 acres (40 ha). When Willow Smith was 13 years old in May 2014, Moisés Arias, who was 20 at the time, was captured in bed with her without a shirt on. The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services looked into the family after seeing the picture.

Pinkett Smith said in an interview in April 2013: “I’ve always told Will, ‘You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay.'” This statement led many to conclude that she and her husband were living apart. Will is his own man, at the end of the day. He is his own man, yet I am here as his partner. On Facebook, she clarified her remarks and refuted this, writing: “Open marriage? The remark I made about “Will can do whatever he wants” has made it clear that we need talk about how trust and love are related to one another.

August Alsina, a musician and rapper who is friends with Pinkett Smith’s son Jaden, said in June 2020 that he and Pinkett Smith had an adulterous relationship in 2016, when he was 23 and she was 44. He added that Will Smith has given his approval for the relationship to go place. Pinkett Smith’s spokesman called the allegations “absolutely not true” and refuted them. Pinkett Smith revealed a “entanglement” with Alsina during their separation on July 10 on an edition of Red Table Talk including her husband, but not with his consent.

Alsina saw it as permission, according to Pinkett Smith, despite the fact that she and her husband had “amicably” separated. After ending her connection with Alsina, she eventually reconciled with her husband, and she claimed she hasn’t spoken to him since. The word “entanglement” was popularized online by Pinkett Smith. Will Smith claimed in 2021 that Pinkett Smith “never believed in conventional marriage” and that both of them had extramarital affairs.

Jada Pinkett Smith Quick Fact

• Name: Jada Pinkett Smith
• Birth Year: 1971
• Birth date: September 18, 1971
• Birth State: Maryland
• Birth City: Baltimore
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Jada Pinkett Smith is an actress who starred in TV shows such as ‘A Different World’ and in such films as ‘The Nutty Professor’ and ‘Girls Trip.’ She is married to actor Will Smith and is the mother of Jaden and Willow Smith.
• Industries
  • Action
  • Comedy
  • Drama
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• Schools
  • Baltimore School of the Arts

Are Will and Jada still married?

One of Hollywood’s most well-known and enduring couples is Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, but their journey hasn’t been easy. After 25 years of marriage, they have both been unusually candid about the challenges and victories of their committed relationship.

Who was Jada Pinkett ex?

August Alsina, Jada Pinkett Smith’s ex, disputes He saw Chris Rock’s stand-up performance.

Who was Jada Pinkett to Tupac?

Jada and Tupac were childhood friends in Baltimore, Maryland, before any of them became well-known. Tupac moved there with his mother in the 1980s, and Jada was born and raised there. Jada previously talked about how she met the rapper at the Baltimore School of Arts.

Who does Jada Smith date?

A timeline of August’s involvement, Will, and Jada. The entanglement made international headlines. On July 10, Jada Pinkett Smith appeared at the Red Table and admitted that when she and her husband, Will Smith, were apart, she had a romance with R&B singer August Alsina.

Who is Will Smith’s first wife?

Trey Smith, the couple’s son, was born during Sheree Zampino’s three-year marriage to Will Smith. Both later wed new partners; Zampino wed former NFL player Terrell Fletcher in 2007; Smith wed actress Jada Pinkett Smith in December 1997; and they separated in 2014.

How long was Jada married?

Following Jada’s admission that she “never wanted” to be married, the couple has subsequently acknowledged having an open relationship. Check out what the couple has said about their 24-year marriage by going back to their wedding day…

Who did Jada Smith marry?

According to Jada Pinkett Smith, she will be penning a biography on her harrowing experience in Hollywood and her “complicated marriage” to Will Smith.