Jada Pinkett Smith reveals how her and Will Smith's kids reacted to her memoir

Jada Pinkett Smith's new memoir, "Worthy," is shedding new light on the actor's early beginnings, career and marriage to actor Will Smith.

In the book, Pinkett Smith reveals she and her husband had been separated since 2016, along with a lot of other revelations about her life in the spotlight.

While speaking with InStyle about her memoir, Pinkett Smith talked about her family and revealed how her two kids, Jaden and Willow Smith, and Smith's older son, Trey, whom he shares with ex-wife Sheree Zampino, reacted to her memoir.

"What I did was tell them what’s in the book, what stories I was going to tell about them specifically, and [ask] if they were okay with that," Pinkett Smith said. "Willow has read [it], she’s an avid reader, and she’s the next author in the family. She has a [fiction] book coming out on May 7 [2024]. But she read a huge part of my book before it was even edited, so she loved it."

"She couldn’t wait, she’s like, 'Mom, I’m taking this copy. I got to finish my read.' She was super excited about it," Pinkett Smith continued.

As for Jaden and Trey Smith, the actor said they haven't read it yet.

"But the boys, I just told them what was in it. They’ll read it eventually," she said.

In Pinkett Smith’s Oct. 13 NBC News primetime special with Hoda Kotb, the actor talked about her memoir and explained why she and Smith have been separated since 2016.

“I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be,” she explained of what caused their marriage to fall apart.

Pinkett Smith said they have considered divorcing, but she has never been able to launch on it.

“I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through ... whatever,” Pinkett Smith said. “I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”

Pinkett Smith clarified her relationship status during an Oct. 16 visit to TODAY, saying she and he husband are "working hard" to heal their relationship.

The 52-year-old actor's new book also discusses her relationship with her adult children, Jaden Smith and Willow Smith, and being a "bonus mom" to her husband's eldest son, Trey, whom Smith shares with ex-wife Sheree Zampino.

“Raising children, I don’t care who they are, that’s challenging,” Pinkett Smith said on a 2021 episode of her Facebook Watch show "Red Table Talk," which was canceled in 2023. “Being a mother is challenging because you sacrifice a lot. But I’ll tell you what, sacrificing for you guys was sacred."

Read on for more information about Pinkett Smith's kids.

Jaden Smith

Jaden Christopher Syre Smith was born on July 8, 1998 and is 25 years old. He famously acted alongside his dad at age eight in the 2006 film “Pursuit of Happyness” and in "After Earth" in 2013. He's also known for starring alongside Taraji P. Henson in “Karate Kid” in 2010. He hasn't acted at length in years, though, and has become known for his music and his activism.

Jaden Smith also has experience modeling and previously featured in Louis Vuitton's 2016 ad campaign.

On the music side, he's known for his 2017 album "SYRE." He also has a number of music videos that he's starred in or worked on, according to IMDB.

He's philanthropically engaged with local communities. In 2019, his JUST company collaborated with a local church in Flint, Michigan, to design and engineer a mobile water filtration system that would help to reduce lead and other potential contaminants to Flint residents impacted by the water crisis, according to the Detroit Free Press. That same year, he started his food truck, I Love You Restaurant, which provides vegan food to homeless people in the Los Angeles area at no cost to them.

As a teenager, Jaden sought independence, eventually moving out of the family home at 15.

In her memoir, Pinkett Smith recalls the moment she made making the tough decision to let her young son move out of the house and live with his friends.

“As scary as every image was that flashed through my mind, I knew that if I didn’t let him go, on his terms, it would hurt him more than help,” she writes.

Once he was gone, Pinkett Smith says in the memoir, “A flood of tears fell from my eyes. I did my best to keep from wailing, to maintain some control in the midst of the worst heartbreak I had ever felt.”

Willow Smith

Willow Camille Reign Smith was born on October 31, 2000 and is 22 years old. She hosted "Red Table Talk" with her mom and grandmother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, before it was cancelled in April. Over the course of the show, Willow Smith championed mental health and opened up about her journey.

In a May 2018 episode of Red Table Talk, Willow Smith revealed that she struggled with cutting, or self-harming herself, after the release of her 2010 single, "Whip My Hair." The song came out when she was 9.

“It was like a kind of lull, I was just listening to a lot of dark music,” Willow Smith said. “It was just so crazy and I was just like plunged into this black hole, and I was, like, cutting myself.”

Willow Smith's confession came as a surprise to Pinkett Smith who said she wasn’t aware that her daughter was harming herself and struggling in that way.

“(I) totally lost my sanity for a moment there," Willow Smith said. "I never talk about it because it was such a short, weird point in my life, but you have to pull yourself out of it. I honestly felt like I was experiencing so much emotional pain, but my physical circumstances weren’t reflecting that.”

This wasn't the first time that Pinkett Smith was caught off guard by her daughter's behavior. In "Worthy," the actor revealed a scary moment when Willow, who was then 14, decided to impulsively jump off a cliff in Kauai, Hawaii.

"My brain does a double take," she writes. "Willow, moving with feline agility and speed, goes flying off the edge, vanishing out of my sight. I run to the cliff just in time to see that she has barely cleared the rocks to make it into the churning ocean below."

Though Willow did not get hurt, Pinkett Smith writes that the moment was still very terrifying, reminding her that there will always be things out of her control.

"Everybody has different edges they like to walk, and different ways to feel the rain," she writes.

Aside co-hosting "Red Table Talk" with her mom and grandma, Willow Smith also plays the guitar and is credited for adding diversity to the rock n' roll and punk rock genres with her edgy music. She famously shaved her head during one of her 2021 concerts. She has released singles over the years, but her first was "Whip My Hair" in 2010 and it put her on the map. Since then, she's also released albums like "The Anxiety," "Lately I feel EVERYTHING," and one that's self-titled.

Willow Smith also models and is the face of Mugler's fragrance line Alien Goddess.

Trey Smith

Trey Smith was born on Nov. 11, 1992 and is 30 years old. Although he is the son of Will Smith and Zampino, Pinkett Smith has embraced him as her own.

Following in the footsteps of his family, Trey Smith is also an actor and musician. He appeared in TV series "All Of Us" in 2003 and in the short film "The Speech" in 2008," according to IMDb. He's also appeared in music videos: "Just the Two of Us" with his dad and "Find You Somewhere," directed by Pinkett Smith, which also includes his siblings. He's also released two singles, "Out of KnoWWhere" in 2022 and "Mom & Babe" in June.

He endearingly referred to Pinkett Smith as his "bonus mom" in a happy birthday post he penned to her in 2019.

"You search for truth as if it were the last drop of water on the planet," he said on Instagram. "You’ve turned unconditional love into an Olympic sport. I’m forever grateful to acknowledge and share another beautiful trip around the sun with you... Happy Birthday Bonus Mom."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com