Jada Pinkett Smith

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Monica Smith.

Good morning to you.

Good morning, how are you? Happy Monday morning.

It's Monday, it's a new week, fresh start.

Yep, Monday seems to always come first in the week.

Actually, technically, I think it's Sunday. I hate that. Me too.

Don't you think that's bullshit?

Yeah, I don't love it.

Sunday's not the first day of the week. It's the last day of the week.

I feel like a nerd made that up.

Yeah, is it because it's a religious connotation? Are you supposed to start the week with the observance? I'm confused, but it's certainly the end of the weekend. How could the end of the weekend be the first day of the week?

It must have been, it was invented before there were weekends and weekdays.

Probably. This is an incredible episode. It's so good, it's insane. What an experience. Jada Pinkett Smith.

So lucky.

Yeah, please enjoy Jada Pinkett Smith. ♪ He's an observance man ♪.

♪ He's an observance man ♪.

♪ He's an observance man ♪.

What do you think of these chairs, Jada?

I like those chairs, I really do. I gotta be honest, I was like, this is a real deal, armchair podcast.

That's right.

We try to live up to the name. We sure do. If you want a brief history, it started with this recliner.

This was Dax's.

Okay.

This was. And I found that my sweating in it, like my shirt, was wet, and it may happen again today. And then, when I go outside to take a picture with the guests, I'm like, oh fuck, they're gonna touch my back.

He got really self-conscious about it.

Incredibly self-conscious. But I'm like, I need a fabric chair. So I ordered this online. I didn't know I was getting like a big and tall version. Because, look, I'm 6'3".

I love it. I did not expect the grandma print.

That's true. It's mixed messages.

Disarming a little bit, right? Yeah.

I was like, this is gonna be cool.

But also it didn't fix the sweating. He still sweats in this. So it didn't really help.

It's okay.

It's all good.

Yeah. That's that man heat. You know what I mean? When you're 6'3". That's right.

Oozing out. You were early. Are you always early? Or is it because you have to drive across the world to get here?

I have to drive across the world. So I'm always early for everything. Yeah.

Now, were you late to red? Because I'm late to this.

No, no, no, I'm never late. I guess I got that from my grandmother. Being punctual.

Your mom's mom.

Yeah, my mom's mom. I had to be punctual. So I'm always early. Even in my own house.

Was it strict?

My childhood with my grandmother was very much about schedule. Yeah.

I gotta tell you, I have not had the experience I had in the last couple days. since I was in college 23 years ago. It was very important to me that I actually read your entire book. Right. Because I have a lot of respect for you and I want to earn going to all these places.

Dads, thank you.

Very muscle memory. I was like, oh, I haven't had this experience in like 23 years.

It's kind of fun, right? It is. Puts you back in that space.

Panic, though. Do you remember that, panic?

Oh, yeah.

You're like, oh, fuck. We were running out of time. I'm gonna have to read till two and then wake up at six. I loved it. Thank you.

Well, that's why I've been trying to get you to the red table.

Wow.

You got next.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. But yeah, I mean, I don't even know where we would start, but I think, like addict parents, young parents, divorced, early, addiction, abuse, it's all right there.

All of it. It's such a universal story for so many of us.

It is, and I think, you know, when we were growing up, I don't know, you would occasionally hear someone come on Oprah, right, and say something, and then in my shitty town, it'd be like, well, they want attention.

Yes.

Because you did feel it back in that day that if you were to acknowledge any of these traumas, that you'd be out, you'd be persona non grata, right? It was too high risk.

For sure.

It's such a different time.

It's a way different time.

And I'm delighted it's this way.

Yeah, me too. More transparency, and we get to really share the authenticity of our stories. It's still a lot of stories that are quite taboo to share, you know, but I think in this day and age, with everything that's going on, I think what's most important is to let people know that you're not alone, and for those of us who have been through the gauntlet in a certain manner, to share what we've learned along the way, to try to get through this thing called life.

Yeah. But you know, I'm hypercritical of myself. I'm imagining you beat the shit out of yourself. Absolutely. I'm seeing all the incredible gifts that come out of the background, and I'm also relating so much with the character defects.

I mean, that is a big part of it.

Sometimes they're hand in hand, often.

Yeah, different sides of the same coin. This is the magic of AA, right, is? I get immense pleasure out of seeing someone else with the same character defects. Yeah.

I'm like, no, they're struggling with the same thing.

She's being tough again. Let the world know, don't hurt me. Exactly, exactly.

Come on, Dex, that's what it's all about.

If I had to isolate the number one similarity, it's I will hurt you back.

Yeah, there it is.

It's a bummer. It breaks my heart for you. It doesn't break my heart for me, but I'm aware of it. It's gotta be fucking exhausting to be around us, though. No.

Yes, and that's the thing I had to realize. You know what I'm saying? I had to realize that in my coming to Jesus, moments about myself through my healing process.

Yeah, in the book, I gotta say, I gotta really applaud, in a very, very AA way, you're brutal on yourself. You take your inventory in this book.

I take a lot of inventory.

And I fucking admire it. Thank you. It's the bravest shit anyone can do. To acknowledge I've been an asshole along the way, I've been indulgent, I've been all these things, and then I have such compassion for it. So my first question really is, you wrote it, you have all that control while you're sitting by yourself and you're experiencing that, and then now, it's seeping out and now it's not in your control.

Right, but I told everybody, especially Will, I was just talking to him on the phone. I was like, I told you it was gonna be a rough start. Brace for impact, but, you know what I mean? It's going to be a cool landing. Yeah.

That's the hard part. when there's other people. You still have an obligation to share your truth, but sometimes it brings in other people's truths too.

It's been interesting what different people take from my story. It's like, well, no, no, no, it's not exactly the, damn. it, all right, boom. You know what I mean? That's like, okay, that's your interpretation.

I guess the whole journey is to eventually, at some point, look at yourself and go like, yeah, man, here's the whole thing. I'm cool with it, and it's okay with me if you're not.

Right.

This is jumping into the fire. This is it. This is it.

This is jumping into the fire.

Yeah, like you, might be a day away from self-actualization. Exactly.

That's a bummer, but you know, been there several times over. I'm just glad that there's a book, so just in case somebody really wants to know what's going on. You got 406 pages. you can read. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You didn't phone it in, it's a book. So I wanna say, if you zoomed out for a second and you imagine this was a book from someone in the 20s, and it's about this woman who grows up in Baltimore in this crazy situation, sells dope, works at Merry-Go-Round. By the way, so many blasts from the past. Fucking Merry-Go-Round, all the music was on fire. Merry-Go-Round.

What would we compare Merry-Go-Round to? Is it like Hot Topics? Maybe, okay, sure, sure.

Or HK, is that the name? H&M?

H&M? H&M or 21 Forever.

21 Forever.

Forever 21..

Forever 21, something like that. You know, they would have like satin zebra stripes shirts.

Wow.

If you and I went to the mall.

With shoulder pads.

And I wanna see where the hot girls were at, straight to Merry-Go-Round. I got no business in there.

See, so the hot girls went, that's where the hustlers went to shop for their girlfriends. Yeah, it was like the place, if you had money. Oh, it was expensive shit? Well, it wasn't that it was expensive.

In the same way. Forever 21 is. Okay, yeah.

But it was like, that was the place that you went to go get your-.

You're going out clothes.

Yeah, you're going out clothes. You're going to the club, an outfit.

They were in malls generally. So it was pretty sanitized. And then Merry-Go-Round was like pulling you in, this pulse of vibrancy. Exactly.

I can't believe you worked there. Cause. that's where all the hustlers came into. In Baltimore, that's where you met all the big dogs. Wow.

It was like the lobby of the Four Seasons.

On the street level.

Our equivalent. Yeah, exactly. Okay, but it's a story about this. And I'm using the word little girl affectionately. Objectively little, you're a little girl.

Oh, I was like, wait.

No, I mean, this is like legendary. You time traveled?

Yeah.

Just the journey in itself, like as an odyssey, it's pretty bonkers. Thank you. Yeah, I hope you can zoom up just a little bit. Little bit. Look how much shit happened.

Even my daughter said it. She's like, you've lived like five different lifetimes in one, you know? Yes.

You got a short trip on this planet and you packed every fucking thing into it.

And let me tell you, this book is not even, that's just one line. Like, there's so much that I've left out of the journey. It's been full on. I've been really blessed in that way.

Yeah, so you move around a ton. Let's just start there. There's like really no stability happening. Dad's around for a year.

Yeah, my father was kind of in and out of my life because he had really, they both did, had big substance abuse problems. Yeah, just take your pick.

Crack addict and a heroin addict.

Yeah.

Arguing over who's gonna.

Yeah, exactly. I talk about it in the book. He told me at seven, I can't be your dad. You know, I'm a criminal and a drug addict. And I was like, okay, that makes sense.

You got logic on your side.

Yeah, I was like, that makes sense. And at that time, he wasn't in my life enough for me to miss him. I was just happy that somebody was telling me the truth. That somebody wasn't trying to act like it was something that it wasn't.

Yeah, get one over on you.

Yeah, you know.

Because already this is a chip on our shoulder. Exactly. Don't try to get one over on you. Exactly.

So that's where I was even at seven. So I had an appreciation for like, thank you.

So I wouldn't even say the dad story's a heartbreak. For me, the first real heartbreaker's Tony.

My bonus dad.

I mean, this fucking breaks my heart.

Yeah, that one.

Because you had a chance.

I had a chance. Will would say to me all the time. He was like, you know, your issues with your father. And I was like, it's not him. And then I realized it was Tony.

So what age was this?

So he came into my life when I was nine. And then my grandmother passed away when I was 13.. Right after she passed away, he divorced my mother. Yeah.

But let's set the stage too. Other than granddad, which shockingly and probably is an anesthesiologist, a black anesthesiologist in the 70s. But other than him, we don't have a lot of folks that are super dependable.

Well, it was him and my father's father, Grant Pinkett. I had my two granddads.

Yeah, yeah.

Grandparents, yeah.

Yeah, you were close with dad's dad and mom's mom.

Yeah, exactly.

Fuck it, let's sidebar for a second. Grandparents.

Lifesavers.

For me, I don't have them. I don't know. Right? Yes, bup-a-bop, fuck. Yeah.

There it is.

Okay, so you got granddads, but the men, I don't know. But Tony arrives and Tony's a lawyer and he's gonna work for the state prosecutor.

He's still a lawyer today. Very successful in Baltimore. Oh, he is? Yes, very successful. Oh, that's wonderful.

What age do you start becoming aware that mom's struggling?

It was probably six. You know, you find the little weed seeds all over the house. These kind of like, you stay out here, we're going in this room. Right.

Adult stuff's happening.

Yeah, adult stuff's happening. Everything was cool, but I think, as I got older and specifically once it was just she and I, that's when it got really extreme. Nodding off in the house, burned cigarettes in all the furniture, the white powder on the dresser and spoons.

Spoons is a giveaway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But she became a nurse, an RN.

She's a nurse, she's an RN. She was at one time head nurse at a women's clinic in the inner city. You would have never, she was the most high-functioning heroin addict. We were talking about this the other day because somebody was like, I never knew a high-functioning heroin addict. And I was like, damn, she's the only high-functioning heroin addict I knew.

I get into arguments with people on here all the time. I'm like, you. think you have an idea what an addict is? No, no, the addict's your boss. The addict owns that.

Yeah, real talk.

There ain't no type, but that is impressive. mom was juggling all that stuff. But anyways, Tony arrives and you guys are immediately thick as thieves.

Yeah, I had so much fun with him. It seemed like I spent more time with him during that time than with my mother. Like when I think about that scope of time, I'm like, where was Adrian? Well, she was studying and working. On the weekends, we were off driving to Boston and seeing some of his college friends.

He's gotta be your first glimpse of, oh, I'm gonna be able to go out and devour stuff. Like. I'm gonna be able to leave here and I'm gonna be able to go places. Cause he's on fire.

To be honest with you, when I'm thinking about it now, I feel like there are a lot of characteristics in Tony that Will has. Sure.

Well, there's some major patterns. Yeah. Pat, your dad is tall and charismatic as fuck. Right. And handsome and funny.

Yeah.

Well, we all do that, right?

Yeah. They're both funny, charismatic, go-getters, ambitious.

Smart as hell.

Smart as hell. Wanna travel, just on the go, go, go. Let's go, go, go. Fun, fun, fun.

Do you think Tony was taking you to some of these places because he was trying to remove you from what he knew was a not great situation?

No, I think that he just wanted- A road dog. A road dog.

Yeah. Someone to chat with in the car on the way to Boston.

Yeah, exactly, he's like, you're here with me, I can't leave you home, so let's go.

Yeah.

He was just ready to go.

But they get divorced and then he has full intention and even tells you like, don't worry, your mom and I are splitting up, but you and I aren't.

Yeah, we aren't.

But what happened?

He hooks up with this woman, he's trying to get his life together. They get engaged and she calls me and she says, you need to find your real dad, don't call him anymore.

Oh, man, you had a shot. I know, I know, you're gonna make me cry.

Don't make me cry, Dax.

You deserve to be cried over. Don't make me cry, but yes.

She really tried to terrorize my mom, and I. I mean, at that time I was young. Thank God she didn't try that when I was 16.. Right, for everyone. That would have been a different story.

I would imagine post-divorce it must have ramped up.

Yeah, post-divorce, and her mother, who was her everything. And probably between Tony and Marion, were the only two people that could keep her accountable. Once they were both gone, nobody's looking, just gone.

You assessed pretty early, you don't want to be dependent on a dude.

Yeah.

Do you know at what age?

Well, my grandmother, from a very young age, always told me, have your own. Do not depend on a man. Now, mind you, she was married to a very successful doctor, but was a social worker and always worked. That messaging was really strong for her because of what happened to her mother. Her mother was put into an insane asylum by her father and just left there.

You used to be able to do that, you didn't like your wife.

Yeah, exactly, you just threw, yeah. My wife's crazy, so we're in this.

Let's go to dinner. Right, exactly. This don't look like a restaurant, this looks like Bellevue. Yeah, we're gonna drop you off here.

She just drilled that into my mind. So, at a very early age, that was the mission.

Now, I guess the thing I'm most curious about is when you decide, I'm gonna get mine, and I have to, because that's gonna be how I protect myself. And I don't give a fuck how I get it. A lot of people are in that situation, they don't decide, I'm just gonna do whatever it takes. You probably can't remember a moment or anything that you decided, I'm not really too concerned about the rules.

Yeah, I think I've never been concerned about the rules. I mean, I was a rule breaker from day one.

You're a rascal.

I was a rascal. Nobody was following the rules in your life. Your dad left, like there are no rules. clearly. It's free for all, right?

And then even in my structured environment, my grandmother was a West Indian woman who took me to the Ethical Society on Sundays. That was unheard of. What black family goes to the Ethical Society? We should have been at a Baptist church somewhere, right? My grandmother was constantly breaking the rules.

I guess maybe my thought or my suspicion was it's a pretty perfect timing that at 13, you get this boyfriend who's 16, you're sneaking out, and you're spending the entire night at 7-Eleven where he works, and your average 13-year-old's not pulling an all-nighter to hang with a dude at 7-Eleven. That's also the age. Tony splits and grandma dies.

Yes.

So I could imagine at least you being in that situation, going, guess what? Life's not fair, so I'm not fucking playing either.

Yeah, I mean, I was just like, nobody's here.

I like this dude at 7-Eleven.

I like this dude, I'm here in this house by myself. Fuck it, I'm going down to go see him. Yeah, and just feeling like, all right, well, I'm on my own. now, I'm gonna do me. Everybody else is doing them, so.

You had a pretty healthy fear that mom might also stop providing.

Yeah, I had a pretty healthy fear that she might not make it, I could get that call. I'll never forget when my Aunt Karen, who's her older sister, was the only one that was just like, get your shit together.

Well, she herself at that point's in recovery.

Yeah, she had been in recovery for 11 years or so. She went into guardianship and that was always an issue. I could really see the level of my mother's addiction through my aunt, because she was just so scared and constantly on my mother about getting in rehab, getting our shit together, you don't get your shit together, I'm taking Jada, I was just like, I'm not gonna worry about all of that, I'm going to make sure I'm good.

Yeah, you're gonna figure out a little safety net for yourself. Yeah. And at this point you move, because there's times where you're at grandma and grandpa's, there's times where you guys are living with Tony all together, and then at some point, I think in around 13-ish, you move into Baltimore.

We move into a row house that's not too far from my aunt, about 10 minutes, and it's just she and I. It hasn't been just she and I in a long time.

And there, we're seeing dealers, we're seeing people make money.

Not there specifically, I got to go back to that block when I did the Today Show, and that block was such a family-oriented block. It was everything past that block, everything in my other worlds, around me, in Baltimore.

How far from Cherry Hill is it?

Oh, Cherry Hill is way far away from where I live. Cherry Hill is a whole world of its own. It's a peninsula, one way in, one way out. And so this is where some of my friends lived that I used to rock with. That used to be my stomping grounds.

Just remembered one of the other parallels. We love roller skating. Yes. In December, I've rented the rink. Oh, wow.

Oh, that's great.

So, right, you got your fingers in some different-.

Yeah, all these little subcultures that I'm in.

So you're meeting small-time hustlers, and you're meeting players-.

At the roller skating rink, at, you know-.

Merry-go-round.

At Merry-go-round, you know, at 7-Eleven. They're all around. Jude Hill Park every Sunday, the clubs, definitely near my neighborhood, up there on Park Heights, up there on Liberty, I mean, you name it, BIPOC, Green Mountain Avenue, that's east, that was-.

His zone was rough.

I don't mess with East Baltimore. Okay. Yeah. Oh, wow, all right. That's a whole nother world.

And then, simultaneous to all of this, you're getting very interested in dance, you're getting interested in acting and performing, and you get into the Baltimore School of the Arts. And this is Tony 2.0.. You got another shot.

Yeah.

Like, as shitty as everything is, also, there's these kind of lightning bolts of opportunity.

Yeah, a lot of lightning bolts, because I would audition for different gigs, like PBS specials, and I would get these gigs. And then, you know, I was hair modeling, and so I would be in magazines. I was always doing something. And even in Baltimore, during that time, I was popping. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

You knew him when you were that young?

They met in school. I met Pac when I was in 10th grade. Oh, wow, at this school. Yes.

Oh, my God.

Did you know they were best friends?

No, I don't know stuff.

Right, there's so much not to know. By the way, I knew that part. I don't know all the other stuff that maybe you knew. that I didn't know until the book.

Right, I know some stuff, but yeah.

I missed all the later stuff.

Wow, oh, my gosh.

I knew about the Pac stuff. Nice. You know the later stuff, whatever. Man, I welled up a few different times in the book.

Well, you cried yesterday talking about it.

I did, I was just talking to Monica about it and I got fucked up. Boy, hearing you describe meeting that young boy with that smile and that charisma.

And that peanut head.

Yeah, and he hadn't grown into himself yet. Like, imagine him before he's the dude on the album cover. Yes. It's so sweet.

It's just a little boy. Yeah.

Have you watched it, Monica? The Hughes Brothers did a documentary on him.

I haven't watched it yet because I was just in the midst of this book, and so I gotta get into it.

I imagine, too, like if someone made a doc about my best friend, Aaron Weakley, I don't know that I could go into it, not on guard. How are you gonna tell a story about Aaron Weakley? Like, I should be telling the story about him.

Right, like protective, yeah.

Also incredibly interesting background is that the Hughes Brothers and Pac had this huge falling out. There was like a fist fight on set. Yet they ended up doing, or one of the Hughes Brothers ended up doing this doc and kind of finding his way back into life. That's what's kind of special about the doc. But what I didn't know about his story was the mom is one of the most impressive humans to ever live.

Oh, my God.

Whoa! Yeah, she was incredible. In my opinion, in a lot of ways, Pac was just the male version of his mom. I didn't know his father, but Faye was brilliant. And when she started speaking in the room, she was as charismatic and she was so dynamic.

She was powerful.

Yeah, she was an incredible woman.

So his mom's also struggling with addiction.

Yeah.

Just like your mom, she's brilliant, she's capable, and she's drowning. So you two meet, and you guys are both fucking little sparklers.

Yeah.

And you got these parents and then you become thick as thieves immediately. It's so sweet.

Yeah, we became family. Because it was like, okay, you know, when you create these unspoken contracts with one another, it's like, I got you, you got me. We gonna be good.

There's a lot of different overarching themes, but the one that I can't escape is masculinity, femininity. It's such a force in this book. It's happening right away when we meet Pac. In your story, he's too cute and charismatic for the dope dealers who got all the power on his street. So he's living in abject fear.

Yeah, they don't like him.

And he's too tiny to do anything about that.

It wasn't even about him being tiny, it was about, he was new. So he didn't have his soldiers, it was just him.

But that's the heartbreaking part of the masculinity trap that we all grew up in, which is like, here's a kid who's so sparkly, and what he's got to dedicate a lot of his time to is thinking how to not get beat down at all times.

And not get caught up in all of that.

And not stomp out his light, yet don't shine too bright around this person. And then, I mean, I have my own opinions about his story. I don't know if you would be offended by him or not. It's so tragic to me, because he was in such pursuit of feeling safe.

Yeah, absolutely.

And he took on this thug thing way too much. He could have went this way and been Prince, and he went this way and was with Suge. That breaks my heart, and that's that masculinity trap. And I don't think it's his fault. Like when I hear where he was growing up and how scared, whether he was showing you or not.

I think he was also looking for his tribe, his army. He had this thing about loyalty, family. And I think that he was looking to feel safe, but I also feel like he was looking to have love. So he was always looking for these different forms of family.

Unconditional.

Unconditional. Just that ride or die.

Do you think in some way he felt robbed that he didn't live in the time where the Panthers were a thing? Really, his destiny was to have been like his mom and been in a group like that. Talk about family.

Yeah, I don't necessarily feel like he felt robbed, because it was still very much a part. It was alive, and he was very passionate about it. I think for him, it was more his frustration of the messaging kind of disappearing. Because what his mother was fighting for was still in full effect.

Right.

And he felt, especially during his earlier career, like Tupacalypse. If you listen to Tupacalypse, that is my favorite Tupac album, okay? Because it is quintessential. Pac, as far as his messaging, as far as what he wants for his community. He was such a freedom fighter.

Most people don't get improved by jail. Malcolm X seemed to somehow, but in general.

A lot changed. And then I think his anger just kind of got the best of him. And then his anger was preyed upon, in my opinion. It was exploited.

Yeah. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

Yes. When people ask me, what do you miss about Pac? Being able to sit in front of him and him just educate me. And me just hear a sermon, a lecture. And Pac would talk for hours.

Well, that's just, I think we can say very clearly your mom, or your grandma, rather, was in the Martin Luther King silo. And then there was the Malcolm X silo. And there's just two different silos. And what's crazy, and I can fully admit this, in the 80s in Detroit, when I would see footage of Malcolm X, I'd be like, ooh, this is a little scary for me. Then I get educated.

He was way ahead of his time.

Yeah, I'm embarrassed. You know, it took me that long to recognize.

Well, it was the propaganda. It was the narrative about him.

Yes. And Martin Luther didn't scare white people. I mean, he scared some crazy racist Southerners, but up in the North, we were like,

we love Martin Luther King, he seems nice. Well, he just had a different approach. He was. But yeah, Pac was just, I miss that about him.

You know what I'm so glad you acknowledge? Because my first thought, when I know you two are friends, is like, how on earth did those two not date? They're the most beautiful humans in a three state area. They're friends, why aren't they fucking? This is impossible.

Especially as teenagers.

Yes.

Horny teenagers. Trust me, Pac and I questioned that a whole lot too.

Trust me.

Yeah. Like, should we? Yes.

But you have a moment on the porch. Yeah, we got a moment on the porch.

He's like, you know, maybe I'm like, Pac, fuck you, kiss me. Yeah, and he does. And it's like, for the both of us, okay? I always want to make that very clear that we both pulled back like, what the fuck?

Now, listen, you're gonna have to acknowledge that most of us in the real world are gonna go, not a possibility. There's a lot of women going, there, ain't no bad Pac kiss. And I'm going, no way. someone kissed you. It was like, oh, my finger.

And you know what? I think that God just made it so. Yeah.

Yeah, he helped you guys. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes.

I mean, really helped us. You need family. You don't need a bad relationship. Right, exactly. And God was like, you two will give each other a special kind of ruin.

You guys want to hate each other in six weeks.

or do you want to transfer a life? Because that's what was gonna happen. Yeah.

You were spared.

Yeah.

And you acknowledge it. What's great about it is, now that the romance thing's completely settled, now vulnerability and a lack of vanity can exist. Yeah. That's the gift of not being romantic.

That is the gift. And you know, honestly, as we got older, the way that we could pull each other's coattails, specifically once we got to Hollywood. Yeah, I bet. Because he would look at me like, chick, I knew you win. Don't trip.

It's cool in the video.

Right, but it's me, bruh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that became a really powerful component in our relationship.

You guys were tethered to each other. Yeah.

We pulled each other through some stuff.

So, I'm gonna kind of fast forward through drug dealing. Yep. Just because, let's just say for the record, you were slinging dope, which is a-.

How could you not have with all of that other, I mean, to me, it's like-.

Well, at four, 11 and 15, I can see where one wouldn't sling dope in Baltimore.

I guess, but it's been in your life since you were little.

Yeah.

But it does get serious. We need to say a couple things. It's cute, and you got money, and you're buying friend stuff. You're even buying Poxum stuff in a very delicate way, so he doesn't feel emasculated again, the masculinity thing. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so I set up shop in this apartment. that's on the first floor, so I can serve outside of the window and through the door with a chain. And so, somebody that I had dealt with in the past and the situation didn't go well then, I should have known, but he came and he wanted to buy a certain amount of coke. So, I was like, well, let me see your cash. So, he had this big wad of cash, and I was like, okay, are you serious?

There's also a weird woman whose apartment it is that you're just kind of subletting.

Yeah, exactly.

That part, like if I'm shooting the comedy version, the fact that there's a civilian in the mix is crazy.

Well, it was her apartment, and she ducks under the table. I fall back into this chair, quite like what you're sitting in deck, but it doesn't have the grandma print on it.

Yeah, you could have used a little grandma print in that moment.

Oh, could I? And so, he runs through the spot to see if there's any more stash in there, but the guy that has the gun to my head, he takes all the jewelry on me. I mean, I've got anklets. I got all this rope, chains and rings, and I never went to Cherry Hill with all that shit on me. I was stopping for a minute.

Yeah, because you had some mentors that advised against this.

Yes, he takes all my cash. He takes everything and leaves.

But this is an interesting thing, because again, I have found myself in this situation. It's like, I can handle anything. I can handle anything. I can handle anything. Oh, while we're in this situation now, this is bigger than one can handle, I'd say.

Yes, I peed on myself, yes.

Which is not what you would have predicted you would have done in that situation, right? Oh, hell, no, and I had a gun on me. And you, probably, in your fantasy, you would have pulled that and said, yes.

I pulled the gun, and that's the first thing my homeboy said when I called him. He said, what'd you do with your gun? I said, I didn't think about you. And that's when I realized, I'm like, yo, you are not built for this.

That's what I'm trying to get at. We have these moments where you get right up to the moment, and you're like, wait, are we all the way in? Are we in Scarface, or are we not?

Is this what you really want to do? I didn't even think about using that gun that he gave me.

Right, and then that fell very quickly. thereafter, and almost as a result of that, you find yourself getting stuck up again in a basement very shortly thereafter.

Yeah, I get stuck up again helping out someone to move some product, and I just felt good that I was still trusted after getting robbed and this whole thing, and they were like, yo, come with me to move this. And we get stuck up again, and I'm like, what the fuck?

How many signals would you like? Thank God. How many more do you need?

I know, how many more do you need? I got endless signals, and then my mother found out.

Yeah, oops.

And then the wrath of Adrian. Can you imagine? I'm reading through my book, and I'm through everything I've been through. She still scares me, right, out of everything. I'm not scared of the police.

She also doesn't have the moral high ground. Right, but she's always been- Protector.

Yeah, at the most pivotal moments of my life, Adrian showed up with that cape, which is crazy. Yeah.

Was she clean at this time, or no? No. No, okay, got it.

Not even close.

It was a very sad story about her stopping by Marigold around to put a coat on, lay away, to try to win your affection a little bit, and then nodding off in front of your boss.

Yeah, that was a rough one.

But again, right, you're in that world where it's like nobody there's unfamiliar with this.

Yeah, it's kind of like what I try to explain to people. We grew up in a war zone, and, as extreme as those cases seem, I know people that, that's Disneyland.

That would have been a good week.

That's just what it is, right? People are like, weren't you scared? When you're in that mindset, that's what this is.

But this is where it's misleading, because you've also already been, dude. rolls up in a new three series, got a new car, come for a ride, let's go to McDonald's. Car chase immediately, car stolen, fucking. full-blown police chase. Full-blown police chase.

Yeah.

I know this well, right? Yeah. And you're not even considering that they're piling up in you.

Nope.

Those adrenal dumps, thinking, oh, I might die. They're almost fun. Not even almost, they're fun.

That's what you know. This is like-.

And it wakes you the fuck up.

Yeah.

It's a high, it's a high.

You do your best thinking, you're at your brightest, your sharpest, like all those things to experience. that is kind of nice.

Yeah, and so that was an addiction that I had to unravel. Just being used to chaos, that's been a huge part of my journey.

Yeah, because you kind of feel dead.

If you don't have it.

Anything short of that stuff.

Yep, so if it's not some high tension or just some craziness going on, you're like, I'm not living right now, so let me create something.

Yeah. Every single trip to the bar in Detroit, it was like 80% chance we're throwing down a night. Yep. There's a level of excitement. I didn't go to bars without thinking that was what was likely to be on the table.

But see, that's what happened to us when we used to go to clubs. In Baltimore, it's like, you know, it's gonna be a shootout.

Yes, right.

You know it's gonna be a shootout, right? And people are like, well, why would you go? I was like, that's what we did.

That's where all the hot people were. That's entertainment, yeah.

That's entertainment. when you grow up. You're in a war zone, you're not getting out. This is what it is, you adapt.

Yeah. And you get that crowd thing where it's like shit's popping up, things are happening. You see, these people are running over here and you're like figuring out where you're standing and I'm gonna get out of here, but I'm gonna get close and watch. All that stuff's so exciting.

It's just part of the upbringing.

But when mom catches you selling dope, you had already been accepted to the University of North Carolina School of Arts, which you were not going to.

No.

Get real, why would you go there? Yeah.

But why'd you apply then?

I didn't. Oh, so here's what happened. My theater department head, they came to Baltimore School for the Arts to audition their scouting. And he was like, I signed you up, you are going to audition. And I'm saying to myself, fine, I'll audition, but I'm never gonna go, so whatever.

Of course. Yeah, oopsies. What?

Cool, I'm not going.

But then mom was like, you're going.

Pack your shit. It wasn't even like, you're going.

You're getting sentenced to college.

Yeah, you're getting sentenced to college. Pack your shit.

Also at this Baltimore School of the Arts is Josh Charles.

Oh, my God, what?

Because she's friends with Josh Charles.

Tupac and Josh Charles.

Tupac and Josh Charles.

I love how you described him. I'm so delighted for Charles. You're like, he's the coolest white dude in the whole school.

He was, yeah, he always had been, because I met Josh in elementary school, at Mount Washington Elementary. And I just loved him. He seems cool. He's cool as fuck.

That's where he got the swagger. Yeah. Yeah, if you can pull off being white. He's from Baltimore, yeah.

Once he went to New York and he was living the life of a professional actor. Me and my homegirl, Corey Washburn at the time, went to see Josh in New York and kicked it with Josh.

She's telling the mom they were gonna go do an Alexander Technique workshop and they got busted. You got busted a lot. I did, I was always getting caught.

I was like, the school, never called my mother to say I wasn't in school. I never went to school. Why this day? Yes. Right, right.

Oh, that's funny.

She's like, well, she's on a school trip. They're like, there is no school trip.

But again, here's the sprinkle of fairy dust, which is to meet a kid at Mount Washington who, you see, actually went and started making a living at it. That's invaluable.

Yeah, it is.

Meeting Pac. You take those two people out of your sphere, it changes what you might think is possible.

Oh, absolutely. And just having a friend like Pac at the time, who was really constantly reminding me, like he knew what I was doing. He didn't get on me about it, but he would always remind me, like, you really got that thing. You're better than all the shit you're doing. He wouldn't say that.

You guys beautifully took turns.

Yeah, we flip-flopped a lot.

Yeah, yeah, that's really sweet. This has no business in the interview, but I'm gonna own it. I like every other 18.. There's nothing unique about this, but I was probably 18 when I saw Menace Society. How old were you when you did it?

I was 20, no, I might've been 20..

Okay, then I was even younger. So I, like everyone else, fell so head over heels in love with you.

Aw, Dad!

No, no, I was like, I didn't think they made humans that look like this. So I'm reading the book kind of just selfishly in the back of my mind. It's like, she doesn't seem to like white dudes. Then John pops up.

John Cole?

I found my way into the story. You know, I was feeling very left out of the story. And I was like, okay, weird, goofy, tall John artist mushrooms. I'm like, I could have played that role in high school. So I was comforted by, I know you didn't go there all the way, but I was very comforted that there was a John in the mix.

Let me tell you, John, and he's still a very good friend of mine to this day. Was he from college?

The Curator of Art School.

Yeah, he was from Baltimore School for the Arts. And he was also Tupac's best friend.

The three of them were a triumvirate. They'd do shrooms together and get artistic.

We were the three musketeers.

Oh, it was so fun.

It was actually Pac that I asked. I was like, I need you to get to know this guy, John. I want to make sure he's not on. no, weirdo shit.

Sure, you never know, with the white boys. Right, exactly, never know. Is he okay? As a wingman, he then fell for him.

He was my wingman, right? And so then we all became so cool, and then me and John started dating.

Anyways, this is a very encouraging part of the book. I don't want to pass over it.

You know how you said people take different things from the book?

Exactly, that's what Dex took from the book.

I'm as egocentric as anyone. I'm reading this book like, how does this affect me?

He's like, John, that's where I am right there. Get it, John, get it.

Okay, so you do a year at North Carolina, and then you decide to go to L.A. All the other bullshit in Baltimore that's in the past were now going all in on acting. And so you moved to L.A., and what probably felt long to you was very short.

As far as what?

Arrival and working. Oh, no, it didn't feel long to me at all. Oh, did it? Okay, good. Oh, yeah, no, it felt very short.

It went really quickly.

I was eight years before I had an agent.

Yes, see, I knew, let's trust me, I was very lucky when I came to Hollywood. And the only reason why I got an agent is because I used Kenan's name.

That's right, yeah.

I was like, and I asked Kenan respectfully, I was like, can I use your name?

She had a girlfriend who was dating Kenan.

Ivory Wayans at the time, yeah.

Now there's another Kenan in the mix, and I'm afraid, yeah, that's right.

Oh, Kenan, yes.

Yeah, yeah, so through her, you come to know, Kenan.

Right, and so he from the gate, was like, this little wild child right here, you know what I mean? Hood rat, you probably look like a hood rat. He just thought I was funny. He thought I was very brazen and bold. He liked that.

Right, because you were a dancer, man. You did dance battle. I was a dancer, yeah.

So he was like, pause on all of that. But we became friends, and I said, so, Kenan, can I use your name to get an agent? And the first person I call, Nancy Rainford, who had this small, tiny agency on Melrose, I call her and I go, hi, Ms. Rainford, my name is Jada, and Kenan Ivory Wayans told me that I should call you. She said, Kenan Ivory Wayans?

I mean, this is such a great technique.

She said, come see me now, and so when I walk in the door, I see she's a black woman. I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. I was like, this is great. And she also had Michael Rappaport. So she had the two of us, and she helped us at the beginning of our careers.

Yeah, Rappaport would drive her around for auditions and stuff. Michael was my homeboy.

Me and Michael had such a good time together. It was great.

The big pivotal thing then next is A Different World. What's her name? I've written it all down, but I'm not gonna glance at that. I've challenged myself not to look at it. Debbie Allen?

You're doing good, Dax.

Okay, thank you. You're doing good. Thank you, I'm getting an A-. so far on this final exam, I've crammed for.

Debbie Allen, yeah.

She's inspirational.

This is the woman that I was looking up to. Debbie Allen, she writes, she's a producer, she's an actress, dancer, choreographer, director. I mean, there's nothing a woman can't do. And I'm like, I wanna be that. So I go to audition for A Different World for a guest role.

So here's the freaky, suspicious part of the universe, which is. it's almost like it insists on homeostasis. So it's gonna give you a bunch of bullshit, but it's also gonna give you these crazy, impossible streaks of luck.

Both are impossible.

Yes, it's all impossible, but it's just like the universe is like, ooh, we really kind of piled a bunch on her. Let's give her some of this, this is great. Exactly, it's always been this. Yeah, so everything's happening. And then I have to imagine it came as a great surprise to you that right at the peak of everything going way better than you could have ever imagined, you have your first kind of, I don't know what we'd even call it, a panic attack.

I think it was a nervous breakdown.

A nervous breakdown.

I really do. And it came out of nowhere.

I'm not ready for this. I have it for sidebar. Yeah. Vivian's. Vivian's.

Vivian's.

When I met Kristen, she lived right above Vivian's and we ate breakfast there every morning for three years. We just missed you because you had just, yes.