If you're thinking about deleting your Facebook account, you may want to reconsider because
Jada Pinkett-Smith's Red Table Talk has been picking up steam since its debut on the platform
in 2018.
The show has a knack for eliciting honest confessions from its hosts and its guest stars
- and here are its biggest shockers.
A Kardashian scandal
The Kardashian-centric scandal involving pro basketball star Tristan Thompson and model
Jordyn Woods erupted in February 2019 and dragged out for months.
The gossip was this: Khloe Kardashian's baby daddy, Thompson, was caught at his own house
party in Los Angeles allegedly cheating with Woods, who was Kylie Jenner's BFF.
The outrage was immediate, sending the Kardashians into a fury.
"There's video of Tristan making out with a girl last night.
I know, Khloe's gonna die."
Woods may have had only one place to go to tell her side of the story: Red Table Talk.
"I should have gone home after the party.
I shouldn’t even have been there.”
Woods is life-long friends with Jada's son, Jaden, so the ladies were already familiar
with each other.
During the conversation, Woods tried to set things straight about what did and didn't
happen with Thompson at that infamous party.
"Never once was I giving him a lap dance, making out with him, sitting all over him.”
Woods admitted that she shouldn't have gone to the party, but maintained her innocence.
She claimed the NBA player did give her a kiss as she was leaving.
Afterward, Woods supposedly called the Kardashian clan, admitting,
"I was honest about being there, but I wasn't honest about the actions that had taken place."
Considering Khloe lashed out at Woods on Twitter immediately after the episode, this Red Table
Talk confession was a biggie, but it may not mend any fences.
"F--- these hoes!
And I'm done!”
A Gabrielle Union reunion
Jada doesn't shy away from sharing her past demons.
In an episode titled "Girls Trippin'" the actress explained that while working on the
"girlfriend relationships" portion of her show, actress Gabrielle Union kept popping
up into her mind.
Why was that weird?
Jada confessed,
"Gabrielle and I were never really girlfriends; we were great associates.
At some point, that dissolved.”
She added,
"For 17 years we have not really spoken.”
“You don't even know what you're mad about, ok?"
“We don’t!”
Although neither of the A-listers have opened up much about their apparent falling out,
Union did offer some insight on the Today show in May 2018, saying,
“Neither one of us knew originally what took place back then, but the people that
we had around us were like, 'Well, you know how she feels about you.’”
She added,
"Then it was like, 'Okay, girl, bye' for 17 years."
Jada invited Union to appear on Red Table Talk and revealed that she had finally apologized
to the Bring it On star.
"It felt so good on the phone with you to even just go, 'Hey, I'm sorry that I didn't
even take the time to talk to you.’"
Jada then admitted,
"And just thinking to myself, 'Damn, Jada!
That was some petty ass s---!’
But at the same time going, ‘well that's where you were then.’
Thank God you're someplace else now.'"
Willow's greatest loss
It seems that Willow Smith wasn't as carefree as the world thought when she released her
single, "Whip My Hair," in 2010 - when she was only 9 years old.
During a Red Table Talk episode, Jada asked her daughter to discuss her biggest loss in
life.
And what Willow revealed was totally unexpected: She detailed the dark place she found herself
in after the global pandemonium that accompanied her hit song.
According to Billboard, the track peaked at No. 11 on the Hot 100 chart and garnered a
whopping 1.6 million downloads.
The youngest Smith was immediately shot to superstardom - Bruce Springsteen even covered
the tune on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Yet as she told her mother and grandmother on the show, Willow lost her footing during
it all.
She said,
"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.”
At the time, she questioned,
"Is there anything I can do besides this?"
But her pain went even deeper than that.
"I was just like plunged into this black hole.
I was, like, cutting myself.”
“What?"
Luckily, Willow found her way out of that dark place.
She revealed,
"One night I was like, this is actually psychotic and after that I just stopped.”
“That's good to freakin know."
Looking for love and "Common" ground
Rapper and actor Common got real about his quest for love during an episode of Red Table
Talk, discussing how his past hardships and destructive cycles hindered him from getting
married.
"I was hurt, and I was mad too.”
The performer revealed that he'd been abused when he was young - one of multiple hardships
and challenges he addressed in his memoir, Let Love Have the Last Word.
In the book, Common also gets personal about his past relationship with legendary crooner
Erykah Badu.
Speaking to People about the book, he revealed that his split with Badu was heartbreaking,
saying,
"With Erykah Badu, that was my first love where you're just open and floating.
When we split […] I was in a haze, just going through the motions."
On the show, the rapper revealed that these days, he's finally ready to settle down.
"I would like to be a husband.
For a long time, I was in and out with that like 'Do I really want to be a husband, or
am I doing this because this is what society says?’”
Having found a seat at the table, it looks like Common has learned to practice some proper
self-love.
Jada and Will's "betrayal"
There's no denying that husband and wife team Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith are celeb
couple goals.
Together for more than 20 years, they're clearly doing something right - along with constantly
dodging dirt about infidelity and swinging.
"We've come through some stuff.”
“This a gangsta right here in front a ya'll.
This little one here a gangsta.”
When the topic of cheating came up during a Red Table Talk episode, you best believe
fans were tuning in.
"We got our girl Estelle Perel here today, to talk about infidelity.
This is gonna be a good one.”
Sitting down with her mom, Adrienne, Jada opened up about her marriage, explaining that
while she and Will have been faithful to one another, there have been other, unconventional
betrayals.
"I'm asked a lot, 'Is there infidelity with your relationship with Will,' and it’s like,
no, but there have been other betrayals of the heart that have been far bigger."
Perhaps the secret to their successful union is the fact that they've stopped looking at
marriage in a conventional sense.
In another episode of the show, the Gotham actress revealed that she and Will have even
stopped celebrating momentous occasions, such as their anniversary, explaining,
"It's more of a life partnership.”
She added,
"We don't really celebrate that day, because the context of our union is totally different."
A marriage on the rocks
It's no secret Jada and Will have had to defend their marriage against rumor-mill vultures
over the years.
The A-listers confessed to troubles in their marriage, admitting that they had to quote
"destroy" parts of it in order to come out stronger together.
"One day our marriage came crashing down.”
Will admitted,
"We broke up within our marriage and got back together again and had to rebuild with new
rules and something way different."
He said,
“I took off for two years, I worked on myself, I read 50 books on marriage."
He then added,
"I shut down for two entire years to see what was I doing wrong."
The couple cleared those hurdles and are now stronger than ever.
Little things, such as taking quote, "ten days out of the year" to do what the other
wants apparently keeps the connection fresh.
As for all the gossip?
Will decided to set the record straight at the end of the episode.
"Let's clear some rumors.
We've never been Scientologists.
We've never been swingers.”
“If people understood, that's a specific lifestyle!"
Jaden and Willow's issues with their parents
While it's easy to believe that Jada and Will are cooler than regular parents, there has
been some trouble in their household.
And Willow and Jaden made big confessions to their mom on an episode of the show.
When Jada asked her kids what they thought of their upbringing, Willow got real, saying,
"I only have one like really terrible experience.”
“Which is?”
“Which is 'Whip My Hair.'"
She added,
"You and daddy should have been, 'OK, we value her musical growth and knowledge more than
her popularity.'"
Willow wasn't the only one feeling the pressure of fame.
Jaden admitted he went through the same thing during Karate Kid.
Jada fought back tears and while sharing a confession of her own, she revealed,
"When you become a parent, you have these huge ideals, even for yourself, because we
all are coming into parenting with our own childhood traumas."
She said,
"And you're hoping you can fix all that through your own rearing of your children, and you
can't."
She admitted she did her best as a parent, adding,
"Your kids are gonna have their burdens.
And even though I see how it might have hurt you, it's what I knew."
Ciara's "beauty marks"
A lot of female empowerment went down during Ciara's appearance on Red Table Talk.
"People see me glammed up, and everything looks like it's good, and everything is not
always good.”
When she appeared on the program to discuss her very public failed relationship with rapper
Future, Ciara also confessed to turning her quote, "relationship scars into beauty marks."
Beauty Marks also happens to be the title of her 2019 album - a connection that wasn't
lost on Jada.
"The idea of your album being called Beauty Marks, that really hit me."
She added,
"As we come and go deeper into our womanhood, how we realize everything that we've been
through, nothing's wasted, no regrets."
When Ciara was asked what fueled the idea for the album, she confessed that becoming
a single mom was the catalyst.
"I'd be like crying because I am not in the happiest place and it hurts what I'm going
through.”
She admitted she was grieving her vision of the ideal family, saying,
"I grew up with my mom and my dad being together, the idea of it being mommy and daddy that
made baby.
And then all of a sudden you're living your life in front of the world."
Considering Ciara is now in a loving relationship with her hubby, NFL star Russell Wilson, along
with her kids - and has yet another hit record under her belt - we'd say the singer has successfully
turned the tables.
Jada goes deep
Jada's June 2019 episode of Red Table Talk dove into the topic of polyamory - and she
came across the subject when Willow approached her about it.
Jada discussed the episode with Jimmy Kimmel, saying,
"It's a throuple that Willow was actually following on Instagram.
That's how it all came to be.
She became very curious about this whole polyamory thing."
When Kimmel asked if that was something Willow would be interested in, Jada said,
"Possibly.
I don't know.
Listen, she's 18.
Who the heck knows what's going to go down?"
Jada got personal about her own history at the red table, saying,
"I had a threesome once.
I was very, very young.
Like early, early 20s."
And she claimed she wasn't into it.
"It just didn't have the level of intimacy.
But I tried it once and I was like, 'Well, that's not for me.’”
But she quickly added,
"If I was in love with two people, that's another level.
I could see enjoying a threesome then.”
The revelation raised eyebrows considering Jada and Will have been plagued in the past
by rumors about swinging.
During an episode of Watch What Happens Live, the actress addressed that chatter by saying,
"And I'm like, yo, I wish!"
Confessing to controversial biases
One of Jada's most sensitive subjects to date on Red Table Talk was an unfiltered discussion
on racial biases that affect her, and other women, to this day.
Telling her viewers the episode would be quote, "as unfiltered as possible," the mother-of-two
got introspective about her own biases, openly admitting it's something she needs to work
on.
She confessed,
"I do have my own biases, specifically with blonde women.
Blonde hair on white women just triggers me."
Jada shared her own history, revealing,
"I do remember experiencing being teased by white women in regards to my hair, how I looked.”
And it stuck with her into her adult life.
"I was going to do an interview with this blonde woman, I thought twice about it, I
was like I don't know if I wanna do that."
As Jada, Willow, and Adrienne continued to discuss the topic, Jada declared,
"I feel like we, as women, should know better.
I really do, because we're women.
Because of the struggles that we have as women."
She added,
"There should be a natural understanding and familiarity of our struggle."
But she says that's not always the case.
"And then to be part of creating more of a struggle for another woman, to me, is criminal."
It's clear that Jada hit a nerve and continues to do so with her thought-provoking and genuinely
open-hearted series.
"And that's just real talk.”
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