Jada Pinkett Smith talks about the pain and tears shed while co-parenting Will’s son on Red Table Talk
Jada Pinkett-Smith is ready to give up all the piping-hot tea while sitting at the table for her new show Red Table Talk on Facebook Watch. On the show, Pinkett-Smith dishes about life experiences from different perspectiveswith her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris as well as her 17-year-old daughter, singer Willow Smith.
Three women. Three generations. One table.
And to kick off the premiere episode toeday, Jada wanted to explore a provocative theme tied to Mother’s Day.
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The first episode kicked off with Jada saying the setup was the table of truth, the table of passion and she was right!
Her first guest was Will Smith’s first wife, Sheree Zampino who was open and honest about her feelings about the challenges their relationship.
Jada opened their conversation revealing that upon reflection she had been quite inconsiderate when it came to the unwinding of Sheree’s previous relationship with Sheree and understanding how to co-parent.
They both laughed recounting the serious challenges they had to overcome parenting Will’s son Tre together. One time Jada even hung up on Sheree when she called to talk to Tre in a disrespectful manner. And what happened next left Sheree speechless.
“I called back and happened to say, ‘Bitch, you livin’ in the house I picked out,” Sheree recounted while laughing. “And you said, ‘It’s my house now.”
“I want you to know that Will Smith let me have it,” Jada admits.
“What was his take?” Sheree asked.
“His take was, that is Tre’s mother, and that’s just not your place,” Jada replied.
“The next time I saw you was in the foyer of my house. You took the initiative to make things right. And the one thing I will say about you, you would always say, ‘Re, I apologize.’ You always owned it. Thank you for that.”
The two mothers then spoke about the level of respect and consideration that needs to go into co-parenting a child in the best way possible.
And when it came to what was the most difficult part of the relationship for Sheree she didn’t pull any punches.
“The most difficult part was the week he told me he was introducing you to Tre, and I said ‘no, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ And he said, ‘well, it’s happening.'”
Sheree says when she asked Tre what he thought of Jada after meeting her he told her that he really liked her. This brought both Jada and Sheree to tears.
“Thank you for loving my baby,” Sheree said.
They also talked about Will.
“Do you remember the time you looked at me and said, ‘You know he’s not easy, right?”, Jada recounted.
“Was I right?” Sheree laughed.
“I know this baby daddy is a lot!”
Sheree admitted that she still grapples with not sticking with her marriage to Will and not giving her son what is brother and sister have.
The camera cut to Willow, who was watching the interview, and she had tears in her eyes.
Jada then spoke about how hard it’s been watching Tre deal with all the stuff that comes with his parents divorce and new family dynamic and it brought them both to tears.
“I’ll tell you, on this side of things, my son could not have a better bonus mom,” Sheree said.
“And he’s got a great mother,” Jada said to close the interview.
In the next segment of the talk show, Adrienne and Will got to weigh in on that powerful interview.
“Wow, that just blew my mind watching that conversation,” Willow said.
She expressed that while she felt the tension in the relationship between Sheree and her parents growing up she loved hanging out with her and sleeping over at her house.
Willow also spoke about how she and her brother Jaden always tried to close the gap with her brother Tre and always wanted to be around him.
Jada then opened up about how when she was trying to heal Tre’s experience she was trying to heal something in her own past.
“I never wanted him to feel like he was separate,” Jada said. She then realized the gift she was given through her conversation with Sheree.
“When I was sitting at the table with Sheree and I watched that interview I had such a healing moment. Because I realized with all my expectations, how expectations will steal the gifts that are sitting right there in front of you because you can’t see them. Because you’re so concerned about creating this picture that you have in your mind, you can’t even see the blessing that’s standing right there in front of you.”
In the next segment, the conversation turned to Adrienne’s experience having a baby and getting married and divorced by the time she was 19 years old.
“They were the worst years of my life,” Adrienne said.
Then Jada turned the conversation to Willow for her thoughts on motherhood.
“I don’t know if this is a world I really want to bring more kids into,” Willow said. “But we’re very similar so maybe I will end up with a tribe of little youngins’.”
Willow then turned the tables on her grandmother Adrienne and mother, Jada to ask them to share their biggest motherhood regret.
“I think there’s so much expectation to be perfect for your kids,” Jada shared. “It’s ok, your kids are going to be mad at you about shit, and yeah, you’re gonna need therapy. But guess what, it’s ok.”
“I was just so young that I just didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t know how to mother,” said Adrienne. “I wanted to be the hip mother. I wanted to be her best friend, but when you’re raising a child, she has friends. She needs you to be a mother to provide boundaries and security.”
Jada then thanked her mom for all her support over the years, helping her raise the children and even traveling with her when necessary.
“If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have been able to do The Matrix, I wouldn’t have been able to keep working. You went with me everywhere and because of that I was able to have my children with me.”
Jada then shared a message with the viewers of Red Table Talk:
“To all those beautiful mommies out there, just know that you are perfect, and lovely, and beautiful. I know that what we do sometimes that we’re not as appreciated as we should be. But here, right here at this red table today, we want you to know you are honored. Happy mother’s day.”
On the next episode of Red Table Talk, the ladies will discuss the topic of loss and Jada will share her thoughts on the passing of her dear friend Tupac Shakur.
