Do we like Jada Pinkett Smith?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean harm record on what we found and a record of giving, held back by one unresolved lawsuit and a thin trail on the bigger issues.
Jada Pinkett Smith is a Baltimore kid who graduated from the Baltimore School for the Arts in 1989. She trained in dance, singing and theatre there, and her school friends included rapper Tupac Shakur. Back at the school in 2023, she told students that a career in the arts needs a “tight” skill set.
She joined the sitcom A Different World in its fifth season in 1991 as Lena James and stayed in the main cast until the show ended. In March 2026 she announced she was returning to the role in Netflix's reboot, her first project in four years. Her part in the new show is still unclear, so it might be a cameo or more.
Most people know her from the marriage-and-Oscars saga. After Will Smith's 2022 on-stage slap of Chris Rock over a joke aimed at her, she said she hadn't walked in as his wife but left that night as his wife. She has also said they have been separated since 2016, and she told the AP “I'm not giving up on that dude.” Call it messy, but it's her own public story and she tells it herself.
The live story is a lawsuit. Bilaal Salaam, a former associate of Will Smith, sued her in late 2025 for $3 million, alleging that at a 2021 encounter she warned he could end up missing or shot if he kept telling her personal business. She denies it, calling the claims false, and in April and May a judge struck several of his claims under California's anti-SLAPP law and ordered him to pay her fees. Some claims survive, so this is alleged, not proven, and not over.
The good stuff is real. In 2006 the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation gave $1 million to the Baltimore School for the Arts toward its expansion and renovation. She keeps going back there to talk to students, which beats a one-off cheque.
So would we support her? Yes. The record we found is of a woman who tells her own messy story and gives back to the school that made her. The asterisk is the Salaam case: a court has sided with her on much of it so far, but it isn't finished and one side's allegation is still hanging there. Nothing here is a reason to bin her.