Jada Pinkett Smith

Jada Koren Pinkett-Smith is an American actress, producer, director, model, author, singer-songwriter and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom True Colors. Her success began to build when she starred in A Different World, produced by Bill Cosby. She earned recognition for her role opposite Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor, and starred in dramatic films such as Menace II Society and Set It Off. She has appeared in more than 20 films in a variety of genres, and gained wider recognition for her roles in the films Ali, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions.

Pinkett-Smith launched her music career in 2002, when she helped create the metal rock band Wicked Wisdom, for which she is a singer and songwriter. She created a production company. She also created her own clothing line. She is the author of a children's book, published in 2004.

In 1997 she married actor Will Smith; they have two children, Jaden and Willow. Pinkett Smith is the stepmother to Smith's son from a previous marriage, Willard "Trey" Smith III.

Together, the couple have founded the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, a charity organization which focuses on urban inner city youth and family support. The foundation has worked with non-profit organizations such as YouthBuild and the Lupus Foundation of America. Before her marriage to Will Smith, Pinkett was a close friend to the late West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur until his death.


Jada Pinkett-Smith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and named after her mother's favorite soap opera actress, Jada Rowland. Pinkett-Smith is of West Indian, Creole and Portuguese Jewish ancestry. Her parents are Adrienne Banfield-Jones, the head nurse of an inner-city clinic in Baltimore; and Robsol Pinkett, Jr., who runs a construction company. Banfield-Jones became pregnant in high school. The couple married but divorced after several months. Banfield-Jones raised Pinkett with the help of her mother, Marion Banfield, who was employed as a social worker. Banfield noticed her granddaughter's passion for the performing arts and enrolled her in piano, tap dance, and ballet lessons.

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