There should be less shaming of Jada and Will Smith

If you have had the privilege and time to engage Jada Pinkett-Smith’s Red Table Talk show on Facebook, you will probably have your own mixed opinions about the layered programme.

Red Table Talk sees Jada and different generations of her family, friends and foes tackling difficult topics to a large audience.

Hollywood has never been a great space for black women, giving very few global space to prosper.

Through Red Table Talk, Jada becomes something of a rebel with one hell of a cause – to open the minds of people, especially black folk.

In the 25 years that Jada and Will Smith have been married, their relationship has withstood the test of time and has been subject to intense public scrutiny and rumours. The same way any relationship would, but the difference is that they are celebrities and their scrutiny is subject to paparazzi, tabloids, columnists and passionate social media users.

While entanglements and open relationships might not be healthy according to many, I wonder if the relationship of the two stars has much for us to learn.

Social media has had a profound effect on many of us. Sure we get to connect with loved ones and stay in touch with people who we don’t have the luxury of seeing face-to-face, but  the different platforms have not only changed the way we see ourselves but have affected the way we see others.

From depression to anxiety, the pressure to put up a perfect façade has pushed many to upsetting lows. With study upon study finding this performance and curation of our lives a traumatic feat, the way we interact with each other when our eyes are peeled off our phones has also changed.

Now that we all run the risk of being cancelled at a drop of a bad Tweet, an air of fear often plagues the way we communicate with each other.  Something that has often troubled celebrity culture, which is why it shouldn’t be hard understanding the high pressured environment that Jada and Will find themselves in.

Already a celebrated musician and actor with his own hit sitcom, Will was already in the spotlight when he divorced Sheree Zampino.

The lovers both had a child when Will revealed on Red Table Talk that he was beside himself realising that Jada was the women he was meant to be with.

Divorcing Sheree in 1995 and marrying Jada by 1997, this was an especially difficult decision for Will, who said he was against divorce on the show.

After 16 years of marriage, Jada and Will were battling rumours of being swingers and facing divorce.

This was made worse by Jada’s own struggles with mental health, which Will haphazardly dealt with by creating the façade of perfection in front of cameras.

By 2018, the couple became something of a punchline whenever they would reveal details of their relationship. Whether it was how open they were or the fact that they referred to each other as “life partners” instead of a married couple.

It was not until 2020 that the truth came out about their 2015 separation, which was tabloid fodder when rumours of a possible divorce were revealed to have been true.

According to the couple, Will had given his blessing to Jada to have sexual affairs with rapper August Alsina, which she famously called an entanglement.

The questionable relationship between the two was incredibly problematic as August had turned to the Smith family during a time of need.

Through it all, the Smiths stuck together and continued to redefine their relationship, constantly realising that a family is more than just procreation and a harrowing commitment to stay together.

Sure, Jada and Will are no happily ever after, but who is?

As a society often burdened by frigid rules that rock between divorce and marriage, isn’t it time we rethink about the way we navigate relationships and marriages?

The social pressure that has burdened Will to often believe that sticking it out in a relationship mirrors our desperation to maintain our own image, so perhaps if that pressure was alleviated we wouldn’t feel the difficulty of being the wives and husbands that people expect us to be, but  rather the wives and husbands our marriages require us to become.