Yahoo News Jada Pinkett Smith responds to George Clooney’s question about how she ‘puts up with’ Will Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith has spoken candidly about what it takes to “put up with” her husband Will Smith while celebrating her 50th birthday.
Pinkett Smith, who turned 50 on 18 September, celebrated the milestone while reflecting on her relationship during Wednesday’s episode of Red Table Talk, where she answered questions from celebrity guests.
The first guest, George Clooney, appeared virtually to wish Pinkett Smith a happy “39th birthday,” before jokingly asking: “How do you put up with Will?”
“Now, they tell me that you’re turning 50, which, that’s not possible, because that would mean that I’m 60, and that’s not possible,” Clooney began. “So you’re 39. Happy 39th. And I’m 49. I like it a lot better.”
The actor then went on to explain that he was told to ask Pinkett Smith a question, and that he did have a question he had been wanting to ask her for a “long time”.
“It’s pretty simple. How do you put up with Will?” Clooney asked to laughter from Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willow and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris. “You’re intelligent, talented, successful and beautiful and you have all these qualities that, quite honestly, Will doesn’t have and I want to know how, after all these years, you do it. How do you do it?”
The actor concluded his question wishing Pinkett Smith a great “29th birthday”.
While Clooney was mostly kidding with his question, Pinkett Smith, who has been married to Will since 1997, took the opportunity to answer the inquiry seriously, with the Girls Trip star explaining that the most important thing is learning how to have a “friendship”.
“I think that what you really have to learn is how to have a friendship,” the actor said. “You know, ‘cause really, how do you put up with anybody? How do you put up with yourself?”
According to Pinkett Smith, once you learn to “put up with yourself,” you then learn how to put up with others.
The actor then reflected on the emotional maturity that she had to reach before she was able to dedicate herself to her relationship, explaining that she “really had to take the time to learn how to love myself”.
“Because, how we love ourselves is how we show people how to love us,” Pinkett Smith continued.
Elsewhere in the episode, Pinkett Smith was asked by Trevor Noah about how she and Will learned to “inspire each other’s happiness” but not be each other’s happiness.
“So, how do you know when you’re expecting Will to make you happy and how do you know when Will is adding to your happiness that you’ve already created?” Noah continued.
In response to the question, Pinkett Smith spoke of the importance of being one’s own “cake”.
“The idea of when you’re expecting someone to fill your happy place and be your happy place versus you creating your happy place within, you have to be your cake,” she said, adding that you can then be “grateful” when someone wants to be the “icing or the cherry on top” but you “got your cake, ‘cause you’re that”.
The actor then explained that, when you have happiness from within, you understand that “nobody owes you anything” and that “anything that anyone decides to offer you is a gift”.
The Red Table Talk host also answered a question from Kerry Washington, who asked if Pinkett Smith has any fears that she is “looking to conquer in this next decade”.
According to Pinkett Smith, she has fears over the uncertainty of the state of the world, and so is trying to work on her control issues and “just let go”.
After the response prompted Willow to ask whether Pinkett Smith feels that “letting go is one of the biggest gifts of growing older,” she responded: “I do. I swear. That is the part that I’ve really been feeling at 50.”
The episode also featured birthday tributes from fellow celebrities such as Mariah Carey, Jimmy Kimmel, Samuel L Jackson, Bethenny Frankel and Ciara.
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