In a new episode of the Red Table Talk, Jada Pinkett Smith opened up about not having protection in her relationships.
She said she never really knew what a true sense of security was.
According to ET the exclusive clip from Wednesday’s “Red Table Talk,” Pinkett Smith and her co-hosts, Willow Smith and Adrienne “Gammy” Banfield-Norris sit down with Mother Hunger author Kelly McDaniel for a conversation on mother-daughter dynamics, where Pinkett Smith reveals that the “biggest wound” that comes out most in her personal relationships is a lack of protection.
“My thing was, just, not having protection. That’s my biggest wound that comes out in all my relationships,” Pinkett Smith says. “And I’ve looked for [the] craziest kind of protection, and I don’t have a really good sense of what’s safe and what’s not.”
She adds, “I’m either extremely protective or extremely defensive.”
It’s something that Banfield-Norris believes started when her mother — a figure of safety and security for Pinkett Smith — died when “The Matrix” actress was in middle school.
“And I’ll tell you why. The environment. It was my addiction. She found her security through my mother,” Banfield-Norris explains. “But, when Mommy died, that’s when my addiction really took off.”
“She died when I was still in middle school, you know, 11, 12 years old,” Pinkett Smith notes.
It was a pivotal moment for the whole family, and impacted Pinkett Smith’s sense of security going forward.
“That’s a really important time to feel secure and safe,” Banfield-Norris maintains. “And that’s when your womanhood starts,” Smith notes.
“And that’s when she lost her security,” Banfield-Norris adds. “My mother was her backbone.”
After her grandmother died, Pinkett Smith says she no longer felt safety, and ended up searching for it out in the world.
“Her house was safe,” Pinkett Smith shares. “And so, once she was gone, there was no safety, so then I went into the world and created my own safety, and that was crazy.”
Watch below:
With all that said, social media is calling Jada out for her sweeping statement about needing protection because recently she said she is not the type of woman that needed protection.
At that time she was referring to the Oscar slap incident involving her husband Will Smith.
“She’s not one of these women that needs protecting. He didn’t need to do what he did, she didn’t need protecting. She’s not a wallflower,” the source shared. “She’s a strong woman, an opinionated woman and she can fight her own battles. But she will stand by him.”
Some of the comments:
I want to start a petition to get RED table talk CANCELLED
and
That lady don’t know what tf she want at this point
and
Girlllllll so he stood up for you, embarrassed himself for you, lost jobs for you can’t return to the Oscars and you still ungrateful atp will move onnnnnnnnn✌
To be fair this conversation specifically dealt with mother-daughter relationships.
People reported exclusively that the episode is titled “How Destructive Mothers Damage Their Daughters: Could This Be You?”
Kelly McDaniel — author of the 2021 book Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance — joins the table for the emotional conversation. Jada, Gammy and Willow each open up about how their mothers affected them.
Entertainment reporter Tanika Ray also stops by to share how her destructive behaviors are linked to a strained relationship.
In the clip, Jada, 50, recalls her childhood, saying, “I had to, like, deal with a lot of stressful adult things at a young age. I didn’t have the ability to deal with the emotions that were coming with it. I just had to buck up.”
“So those women you see that you think are so strong, there’s this terrified little girl underneath. And that’s me,” the star adds, holding back tears and nodding her head as Willow, 21, says to her, “Oh, Mommy.”
Willow adds, “This is why we do the work.”
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