I floated into space: Will Smith reveals his psychedelic trips to solve marriage woes
Hollywood star drank hallucinogenic tea with shamans as he searched for answers in Peruvian jungle
‘If I’m this beautiful, I don’t need Jada or anyone else to validate me’
WILL SMITH says he drank a potent hallucinogenic tea 14 times while in Peru and “floated deep into outer space” after seeking a shaman to help him fix his broken marriage.
The actor, best known for his roles in Men in Black and The Fresh Prince of Belair, has told how, after splitting from his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, in 2011, he drank psychoactive ayahuasca deep in the jungle and had vivid visions.
“I was trillions of light-years away from Earth,” he said in his new memoirs, Will, an excerpt of which was obtained by the New York Post. In eight of his psychedelic experiences, he sensed an “unseeable woman” whom he came to call “mother”. “I can tell she’ll never leave me,” he wrote.
Smith, 53, married Pinkett Smith, 50, in 1997. They have two children but are in an open relationship and have both had affairs. The actor has previously said his biggest fantasy was to have a group of girlfriends that included the actress Halle Berry and the ballet dancer Misty Copeland.
The experiment with ayahuasca started when the couple split briefly after Pinkett Smith’s 40th birthday.
Smith had organised a three-day extravaganza including a documentary about her family, paintings by her favourite artists and a lavish dinner that concluded with a performance by Mary J Blige. His wife called the party “the most disgusting display of ego I have ever seen in my life” and ordered him to cancel the rest of the weekend’s plans.
Smith writes that he then 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.”
He travelled to South America for more than a dozen ayahuasca rituals, despite never having smoked marijuana and barely drinking. “This was my first tiny taste of freedom,” he wrote. “In my 50-plus years on this planet, this is the unparalleled greatest feeling I’ve ever had.”
Ayahuasca is a plantbased psychedelic made by boiling the Banisteriopsis caapi vine with the leaves of the Psychotria viridis shrub.
The reddish-brown drink has a strong taste and smell and has been used for centuries by people from Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador for religious ritual and therapeutic purposes.
In recent years, Westerners have been drawn to shamanic ceremonies while seeking alternative therapy. They have become de rigueur among certain circles in New York, California and London. The active chemicals in ayahuasca can alter a person’s thinking, sense of time and emotions and also cause hallucinations, according to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation. Its ingestion is often followed by immediate vomiting, giving way to intense “trips”.
After the disastrous birthday party, Smith spent 14 days alone in Utah before heading to Trinidad to relax, Peru to have shamanic guidance and then spent time with an intimacy coach.
Having found himself, Smith writes: “If I’m this beautiful, I don’t need #1 movies to feel good about myself. 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.”
This admission is in sharp contrast to his attitude in his younger years when he worked with the aim of becoming the biggest movie star in the world. He had a record eight films in a row that grossed more than $100 million at the domestic box office. These included Bad Boys, Independence Day and Hitch.
He plays Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena, the tennis players, in the forthcoming King Richard, released in UK cinemas next Friday.
Smith is currently attempting to lose 20lbs in 20 weeks in a Youtube series called “Best Shape of my Life”.