Welcome welcome welcome to armchair expert. I'm Dan Shepherd and I'm joined by Monica Smith. Good morning to you. Good morning. How are you happy Monday morning? It's Monday. It's a new week.

Fresh start. Yeah. Mondays seems always come first in the week. Actually technically I think it's Sunday. I hate that. Me too. It's bullshit. I don't love it. Sunday's not the first day of the week. It's the last day of the week.

It's like I feel like a nerd made that up. Yeah. Is it because it's a religious connotation usually start the week with the observed. I'm confused. But it's certainly the end of the weekend. How could the end of the weekend be the first day of the week? It must have been it was invented before there were weekends and weekdays. Probably. This is an incredible episode. It's so good. It's insane. What an experience. Jada Pinkett Smith. I don't even need to tell you about Jada Pinkett Smith. But I will anyway. She's an actor talk show host. She's directed. She's done every day.

She's a huge producer. Red table talk. Monster of a show. Girl's trip. Madagascar. Are there any professors set it off? And her book, which we talk about in great detail. Worthy, which is really incredible. And this was just a fucking beautiful two hours. So lucky. Yeah. Please enjoy Jada Pinkett Smith.

What do you think of these chairs? I really do. I gotta be honest. That was like this is a real deal armchair. That's right. We try to live up to the name. If you want a brief history, it started with this reclining. This was taxes. Okay. This was. And I found that my sweating in it. Like my shirt was wet and it may happen again today. And then when I go outside to ticket.

The picture with the gas. I'm like, oh, fuck, they're going to touch my back. You got really self-conscious about it. Incredibly self-conscious. But I'm like, I need a fabric chair. So I ordered this online. I didn't know I was getting like a big and tall version. Because look, I'm six three. Right. My feet don't touch the ground. I also thought this grandma print would be charming. Madagascar hates it. I love it. I did not expect the grandma print. That's true. It's mixed messages. This army in a little bit, right? Yeah. I was like, this is going to be cool. But also.

It didn't fix this wedding. He's still sweats in this. So it didn't really help. It's okay. That's all good. Yeah. That's that man. He. You know what I mean? You sit three. I mean, nothing you can do about that. That's a man. You were early. Are you always early or is it good to drive across the world? I had to drive across the world. So I'm always early for everything. Yeah. Now, were you late to read because I'm late to this? I guess I got that from my grandmother.

Being punctual. Your mom's mom. Yeah. My mom's mom. I had to be punctual. So I'm always early, even in my own house. Was it strict? My childhood with my grandmother was very much about schedule. Yeah. I gotta tell you, I have not had the experience I had in the last couple of days since I was in college 23 years ago. It was very important to me that I actually read your entire book. Right. Because I have a lot of respect for you and I want to earn going to all these places. I don't want to read highlights.

So I'm also dyslexic. I got to tell you the cramming I have done over there. I haven't done this. I got to the finish line like 40 minutes ago. And I was like, okay, time to take the exam. I read the fucking bio book. Wow. That's thank you. Very muscle memory. I was like, oh, I haven't had this experience. I'm like, what a fan. That's fun, right? It is put you back in that space. Yeah, though. You never know. Oh, yeah. You're like, oh, fuck. Who are you running out of time? I'm going to have to read the two.

And then wake up at six. I loved it. I loved it. I really, really loved getting to know your story. It's pretty bonkers. I know I have a habit of this, but there's some crazy parallels.

Well, that's why I've been trying to get you to the red table. You got next. Yeah, for sure. For sure. But yeah, I mean, I don't even know where we would start, but I think like addict parents, young parents, divorced early addiction abuse. It's all right there.

I love it. It's such a universal story for so many of us. It is. And I think, you know, when we were growing up, I don't know, you would occasionally hear someone come on Oprah, right?

And say something. And then in my shitty town, I'd be like, well, they want attention. Yes. Because you did feel it back in that day that if you were to acknowledge any of these traumas that you'd be out, you'd be persona non-grata, right? It was too high risk. For sure.

It's such a different time. It's a way different time. And I'm delighted it's this way. Yeah, me too. More transparency. And we get to really share the authenticity of our stories. It's still a lot of stories that are quite taboo to share, you know, but I think in this day and age with everything that's going on, I think what's most important is to let people know that you're not alone.

And for those of us who have been through the gauntlet in a certain manner to share what we've learned along the way to try to get through this thing called life.

Yeah. But you know, I'm hypercritical of myself. I'm imagining you beat the shit out of yourself. Absolutely.

I'm seeing all the incredible gifts that come out of the background. And I'm also relating so much with the character defects.

Yeah. I mean, that is a big part of it. So I'm their hand in hand often. Yeah, different sides of the same coin. This is the magic of a a right is I get immense pleasure out of seeing someone else with the same character defects.

Yeah. They're struggling with the same thing.

Yeah. Well, she's being tough again. Let the world know. Don't hurt me.

Exactly. Exactly. Come on, Dex. I'm going to fall about.

If I had to isolate the number one similarity, it's I will hurt you back. Yeah. There it is.

...