Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith was worried how her fans would react when she took Will Smith's last name.
The 'Madagascar' actress, who has daughter Willow, 13, and son Jaden, 16, with her husband of 17 years, feared she would be criticised for failing to be an "independent woman" by sticking to tradition and changing her name after they tied the knot in 1997.
In a new blog post on her Facebook page, she wrote: "The dilemma you face whether to change your last name to your husband's is a timely one. I have always believed that an empowered woman is one that can stand on her own two feet and has the strength to trust her personal code of womanhood and not necessarily the code that a collective creates as the standard to which an independent woman must adhere to, to actually be identified as...independent."
She eventually decided to add Smith to her original moniker, Jada Pinkett.
She added: "Each woman carries a different code so that she may never be replicated and is assured her individuality and freedom. As long as your decision reflects your personal code towards building the woman you want to be in this world...congrats...job well done."
The 42-year-old actress recently gushed about her marriage to Will and how it has "evolved."
She said: "Will, to me, encompasses everything. It's almost as if calling him 'my husband' is too small of a word for what he means in my life... I think I had a very stuck idea of what a husband looks like, what a wife should be. Once I broke all of that, a whole new world opened for me and man, oh, man, I got to see him in all his glory. And so that's what it's evolved into. And I'm just ecstatic about it."
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