The couple separated after the "perfect husband" 40th birthday celebration for Jada she called "the most disgusting display of ego I have ever seen in my life."
Will Smith lost himself for a while after he tried to come through with an epic birthday party for wife Jada Pinkett Smith's 40th birthday, only for her to reject it with a scathing insult.
In the wake of that hurt, he sought answers and help through psychotropic drugs and even a tantric sex expert, where he revealed that what would actually make him happy is a harem.
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View StoryIt all went down during a separation from Jada, as detailed in his new memoir, "Will," which comes out Tuesday, as detailed by the New York Post. Will said that he and Jada didn't want a divorce, they knew, but that they needed to take some time apart, calling their attempts to fulfill one another a "vampire relational model."
It all came as a result of his disastrous effort to please her with a massive three-day birthday celebration that included golf, hiking, a massive dinner and a walk to a archway filled with pics of his wife.
But the elaborate lengths he went for a party three years in the making didn't stop there. The actor also created a documentary film about her family complete with audio clips from her late grandmother.
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View StoryHe commissioned some of Jada's favorite artists to create original pieces of work for her and booked Mary J. Blige as a surprise performer after the dinner. It was an elaborate, over-the-top celebration of her -- and their wealth -- and excess.
Smith wrote that he was "the perfect husband" for this extravaganza, but Jada had a whole different vibe, making him shut down the rest of his planned celebrations after the first night, calling the whole thing "most disgusting display of ego I have ever seen in my life."
He writes that she followed up this declaration with silence -- a silence that lingered the rest of their trip, the flight home and across the next few days. What he doesn't say, at least so far as the Post reports, is who he feels was in the right in this moment.
At the time he told her, "I retire. I retire from trying to make you happy … I quit — you go do you, and I’m-a go do me." And so that's what they did.
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View StoryAs part of his "I'm-a go do me" journey, Smith found ayahuasca, a psychotropic tea, 14 different times, and during eight of those out-of-body experiences, he shared an encounter with an entity he called "mother."
He described her as an "unseeable woman" behind him. He never saw her, but still he could tell "she'll never leave me." He described himself as "floating deep in outer space ... trillions of light years away from earth."
He also said that he had a revelation while out there, so to speak. "If I’m this beautiful, I don’t need #1 movies to feel good about myself," he wrote. "If I’m this beautiful, I don’t need hit records to feel worthy of love. If I’m this beautiful, I don’t need Jada or anyone else to validate me."
There's a lot of truth in those words about finding self-worth and self-love, which is a valuable part of anyone's journey into self-discovery and toward understanding their own happiness.
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View StoryOn his quest for enlightenment about himself, and his path toward happiness, he also wrote about seeking out an expert in tantric sexuality, Michaela Boehm, who immediately asked him what would make him happy.
"I would have a harem," he answered her. But he then struggled to fill that harem with women when challenged.
"Look, you are Will Effin’ Smith," said Boehm. "You are one of the richest, most beloved people on earth. If you can’t have the life that you want, the rest of us are screwed."
With her help, he started naming off some of the dream women he would populate it with, including Misty Copeland and Halle Berry. But Boehm pushed him to go further, and even helped him by pulling up videos of various influential women around the world to help him push his harem population to 25 (Smith does not name them all).
Will and Jada did eventually reconcile, but it's been heavily suggested that they enjoy a different iteration of their marriage -- he danced around the topic in his recent sit-down with Oprah Winfrey -- one that may not be exclusively monogamous anymore.