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Jada Pinkett Smith isn’t shying away from discussing her sex life with Will Smith during a special episode of Red Table Talk with Gwyneth Paltrow.
The host for the Facebook Watch show talked to Paltrow about the challenges of maintaining a healthy sex life in marriage for the actress’s new Netflix show Sex, Love & goop, now streaming.
“It’s hard,” Jada told Paltrow. “The thing Will and I talk about a lot is the journey. We started in this at a very young age, you know, 22 years old. That’s why the accountability part really hit for me because I think you expect your partner to know [what you need], especially when it comes to sex. It’s like, ‘Well, if you love me, you should know. If you love me, you should read my mind.’ That’s a huge pitfall.”
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Jada Pinkett Smith opened up to Gwyneth Paltrow about her sex life with husband Will Smith
Paltrow replied, “Isn’t it weird, though? It’s like someone doesn’t read your mind and we feel crushed.”
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“Crushed!” Jada replied, adding, “You tell me what you need. Tell me what you want, and on top of it, I know that I have to be accountable to do the same…I really try.”
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“It’s uncomfortable, but it’s deeply healthy, and I think around sex, because it’s something that we don’t talk about a lot, and there’s so much fantasy around it…” she said.
Though Jada was open on Red Table Talk about the pitfalls she has faced when it comes to sex in a long-term relationship, she later insisted via Twitter that she and her husband “have NEVER had an issue in the bedroom.”
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In September, Will spoke about his marriage to Jada in an interview with GQ where he touched on their 23-year marriage for the November issue.
Jada famously opened up about her “entanglement” with singer August Alsina in July 2020, and later invited her husband onto Red Table Talk to clear the air about the situation.
While their episode went on to shatter Facebook viewership records, Will said the public did not get the full story at the time.
“The public has a narrative that is impenetrable,” he said. “Once the public decides something, it’s difficult to impossible to dislodge the pictures and ideas and perceptions.”
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Will, who will be celebrating 24 years of marriage with Jada in December, told GQ, “Jada never believed in [a] conventional marriage.”
“Jada had family members that had an unconventional relationship. So she grew up in a way that was very different than how I grew up,” he explained. “There were significant endless discussions about, what is relational perfection? What is the perfect way to interact as a couple? And for the large part of our relationship, monogamy was what we chose, not thinking of monogamy as the only relational perfection.”
He continued, “We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison. And I don’t suggest our road for anybody. I don’t suggest this road for anybody. But the experiences that the freedoms that we’ve given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love.”
