14 DAY TRIAL // Contrary to some reports, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith continue to stay happily married and nearing their 20th wedding anniversary. During a chat with Extra (see the video embedded below), Jada offered some essential pointers that would guarantee a happy and long marriage even in Hollywood.
Tinseltown is known for its fast romances and nasty splits, so by its standards, Jada and Will might as well have found the recipe for eternal youth or an everlasting love potion. This sounds like an exaggeration but it’s not: in showbiz, the durability of a relationship / marriage is measured in months, not years.
Still, Jada says, the secret isn’t so much a secret: in her case with Will, he is her best friend and that helps them both go through rougher patches together. Naturally, being friends means a better communication and more honesty, so no wonder they’ve made it this long.
“Your partner has to be your best, best friend. And he's my best friend. You have to have kind of a warrior mentality. You have to be a soldier for love,” she says.
Being a “soldier for love” doesn’t mean getting your gun permit and training 6 hours a day: it means not giving up at the first sign of trouble and knowing from the start that problems will inevitably appear.
As much as we’d all like to dream of fairy tale romances, they don’t exist in real life – but that doesn’t mean that the real versions of those aren’t worth fighting for.
“You have to be able to withstand tough times and just because the tough times comes doesn't mean it's time stop. It means it's time to dig in,” Jada says.
She’s totally speaking from a place of experience because, as noted above, she and Will have been married for 20 solid years – and are looking forward to even more together. Plus, the two actors also have two children together, so they really do seem to have the closest thing to a fairy tale romance.
As adorable as this tip from Jada is, her marital expertise isn’t what she’s pushing in the Extra interview: this September, on Fox, she will make her debut as Fish Mooney on the new Batman series “Gotham,” which has already received solid reviews from critics with access to early screenings.
The Extra chat took place after Jada’s appearance at the FOX presentation for the Television Critics Association, where a panel for “Gotham” was also present.