Willow And Jada Pinkett Smith Reveal Worst Betrayals By Female Friends On Red Table Talk

Jada Pinkett Smith and daughter Willow Smith opened up about some of their rocky relationships with other women on Tuesday’s new episode of “Red Table Talk.”

The topic of the day was “Why are women mean to each other?”, which led to a discussion about toxic female friendships, difficult mother-daughter dynamics and Black women who don’t support each other. Appearing on the show as guests were “Stick To Sports” podcast cohosts Jemele Hill and Cari Champion.

At one point, the women were asked to reveal their worst betrayals by female friends.

“I had a cousin actually, have, but we’ve settled our differences now. She developed super faster than me and she had the long flowing hair and I got the afro vibe,” began Willow. “I was super skinny, tomboy and I would always tell her the dudes that I liked. Every time, she would date him, every time.”

“After like three times, I was like you know what, ‘You’re the dumb one. You keep on telling her,'” she added.

For Jada, she revealed she “had a girlfriend that brought some dudes to my house that stole my ID and got my name caught up in a credit card scam.”

“Somebody who was close to me, trying to take me out,” she continued. “That goes to show you how envy, I really feel like a lot of us get so riddled with envy. Envy will justify so much really cruel behavior. There’s no resolving that. There’s a lot of that just happens amongst women.”

As Hill opened up about her issues with her mother, the conversation shifted to familial relationships.

“I don’t want the headline to be, ‘She said her mother betrayed her,’ but that is probably my deepest betrayal. My mother’s a recovering addict and we went through a lot when I was growing up,” she explained. “It just left me with this incredible sense of disappointment. Unfortunately, one of the things I still struggle with, it is still hard for me to be vulnerable. We’ve repaired our relationship, she’s great. Childhood lasts forever.”

Champion was very emotional as her cohost spoke, as she could relate.

“Some of our mothers have been really responsible for the toxic relationships we have with other women,” Hill continued.

Jada’s mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones, who has been open about her battle with addiction in the past, revealed she hoped to go to therapy with her daughter — but Pinkett Smith “refused.”

“I refused, only because I felt like, ‘Oh no, you’re not about to take that into my abyss of pain and drop me off,'” said Jada. “I will figure out a way of how to deal with this.”

Willow then pointed out she felt her mother treated her differently than her brother, Jaden Smith. She noted that even “something as simple as getting up at the right time” was handled differently between them, as Jaden would be met with a calmer and more lax demeanor by their mother than Willow.

“She might have a point,” admitted Jada. “I know in this world, we gotta work harder and his father will deal with that, but you, you’re mine. My fear for having a Black daughter and what I felt like she needed to be in this world, put me in a position to be a little harder on her and that’s probably how we are with each other.”

The women all said that Black women need to give each other more “grace,” with Hill explaining that they need to really focus on unlearning certain behavior.

“Eventually, the oppressed begin to take on the traits of the oppressor. We literally spend a lot of time unlearning,” she said. “If you want to be different, you have to unlearn and you have to be willing to be self aware enough to know where you’re vulnerable, where you’re most petty is, you have to be realistic about the ugly shit inside.”

Watch the full episode above.