Jada Pinkett Smith opened up on her mental health “collapse” during a discussion with the rapper Kid Cudi.
The US actress – who has been married to Hollywood star Will Smith for 21 years – revealed she spiralled into depression became suicidal as a young actress in Hollywood.
Pinkett Smith, now 47, said she was about 20 when the illness took hold and admitted she turned to drink and drugs to get through it.
Speaking on her Red Table Talk internet show with guest Kid Cudi, she said: “I had got to LA and got a certain amount of success and realised that that wasn’t the answer.
“That that wasn’t what was gonna make everything OK. It actually made things worse, and I became extremely suicidal, and I had a complete emotional collapse.
“It’s like when you just don’t have control over emotions, your thoughts, you feel completely and utterly out of control. I don’t even think at that particular point in time I understood what I was going through. Now, I know that it was what people would consider a nervous breakdown.”
Pinkett Smith, who has two children with Will, son Jaden, 20, and daughter Willow, 18, said she identified with the story of rapper Mac Miller.
He died in September aged 26 following a drugs overdose. Pinkett Smith said it “easily” could have been her fate.
She said: “In my depression, using ecstasy, drinking a whole lot and smoking a bunch of weed and trying to just find some peace in my mind.
“Maybe we just all in a whole lot of pain and it’s just like, this makes us feel good, period.”
US rapper Kid Cudi, real name Scott Mescudi, has endured a public struggle with mental health issues, with stints in rehab for drug problems and suicidal thoughts.
The 34-year-old, whose hits include Pursuit Of Happiness and Day And Night, told Pinkett Smith he failed to deal with his new-found fame.
Speaking about a period in 2010, he said: “I kind of got to that place of like you know what? I’m gonna party a little bit to try to like doctor this up and maybe that’ll be OK.
“That was before I had kind of dealt with being famous and being successful and all of that, because that was weird for me, early on. It happened really fast for me and nobody coached me, (I had) no mentorship. I just was kind of in it.”
Kid Cudi battled drug addiction before entering rehab. He has been free of cocaine for more than two years, he said.