VIDEO: Willow Smith shares painful confession with mom Jada: ‘I was in this black hole and I was cutting myself’
Jada Pinkett-Smith’s learning a little more than she anticipated at her Facebook Red Table talk show after her 17-year-old daughter Willow revealed that she went through a cutting phase and used to slice her wrists.
Pinkett-Smith seemed shook by Willow’s grim confession after she asked her about her biggest loss saying:
“What? When were you cutting yourself? I didn’t see that part. Cutting yourself where?”
Willow Smith responded,
“On my wrist. I mean, you can’t even see it but there’s still a little something there. But like, totally lost my sanity for a moment there. I never talk about it because it was such a short weird point in my life. But you have to pull yourself out of it.”
She added:
“I was so out of it, you know. I honestly felt like I was experiencing so much emotional pain but my physical circumstances weren’t reflecting that.”
Willow Smith explained that during the height of her career when she was nine, she was the it-girl with the hit song, Whip My Hair. There were a lot of pressures, she said, like to finish her album, multiple tour dates and she just didn’t want to do any of it. She said she was trying to figure herself out.
“It was after that whole ‘Whip My Hair’ thing and I had just stopped doing singing lessons and I was kind of just in this gray area of, ‘Who am I? Do I have a purpose? Is there anything I can do besides this?’ After the tour and the promotion and all of that, they wanted me to finish my album. And I was like, ‘No, I’m not gonna do that.’ And after all of that kinda settled down and it was like a kind of lull, I was just listening to a lot of dark music. It was just so crazy and I was plunged into this black hole, and I was, like, cutting myself.”
Jada Pinkett-Smith, along with her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, listened intently and tried to make sense of Willow’s actions. Pinkett-Smith then talked about the cutting being a tangible, physical manifestation of what Willow was feeling inside.
Willow Smith admits that once she saw that her actions were “psychotic,” she stopped cutting.
Pretty deep.
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Check out the deeply moving episode.
For the first episode of Red Table Talk, Jada’s 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.
To close the premiere episode, Jada 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.”
