Jada Pinkett Smith Opens Up About Ayahuasca: It Helped Her Overcome Depression And Suicidal Thoughts

Jada Pinkett Smith has joined the growing number of Hollywood celebs who are sharing difficult mental health issues and the fact that psychedelic substances are helping them deal with them. “Ayahuasca helped me. It gave me a new, intimate relationship with myself that I had never had before,” Pinkett Smith says. 

The actress told People that her experience helped her expel suicidal ideations, which she said began when turned 40 but then “completely went away” after the ayahuasca experience.

Now 52, she shared that while her relationship and family life with Will Smith seemed wonderful, she was actually in deep pain, including dealing with alcohol and drug abuse issues. She said she didn't see a way out.

“While I was really living the dream, I hit a huge wall — a massive amount of depression,” she said. “I think that I looked at having outside sources to supplement the voids that I was feeling inside.”

A Pathway Out

Pinkett-Smith once overheard her son Jaden, who is now a psychedelics advocate, talking with some friends about the benefits of ayahuasca. 

“When Jaden came to me that day and he’s like, ‘Mom, you got to hear this. My friend’s dad had this experience. I need you to come in here and listen.’ I’m like, ‘I’m there. What is it?’” she shared with the outlet.

“Ayahuasca opened up a whole new world of healing that I’m so grateful for,” she said. “I struggled with depression for so long. And the thing about plant medicine is it helps you feel better, but also solves the problems of how you got there in the first place.”

She consequently encouraged her adult children to try psychedelics, a fact Jaden shared at a recent Psychedelic Science conference in Denver. 

“I think it was my mom, actually, that was really the first one to make that step for the family. It was just her for a really, really long time, and then eventually it just trickled and evolved, and everybody found it in their own ways,” he said.

Will Smith has reportedly also tried ayahuasca. Jaden says he believes the relationship between family members has been helped by the psychedelic. 

“It will actually help us to open up our minds to get out of the old ways of thinking that got us into lots of these arguments and open it up so that it just releases and makes room for you to work it out and massage it out until it’s completely gone,” Jaden said.

Photo from son Jada's Twitter account