Setting an example. Willow Smith had nothing but love for mom Jada Pinkett Smith two months after she opened up about her past “entanglement” with August Alsina.
The mother-daughter duo was joined by author Brené Brown on the Monday, September 28, episode of Red Table Talk to discuss the power of vulnerability and opened up about the most challenging things they’ve shared so far on the Facebook Watch series. When Jada, 49, mentioned the July episode dedicated to her marriage to Will Smith, her daughter, 19, championed her strength.
“I want to put it on the table. I’m so proud of you,” Willow told her mom. “To be able to see you and Dad do that, for me, that was like, ‘OK, that’s the real deal. That’s real love.’ When you can be like, ‘I’m with you, I’m going to stand by you and I’m going to hold your hand because I love you.’ That’s really important.”
Jada and the Hitch actor, 52, tied the knot in 1997. Along with Willow, the Hollywood power couple shares son Jaden, 22. In June, Alsina, 28, turned heads with claims that he and the Girls Trip star were romantically involved — with Will’s “blessing” — years prior. A rep for Jada told Page Six that the musician’s allegations were “absolutely not true,” but the Gotham alum later told all in a revealing Red Table Talk episode with her husband, revealing that they were separated at the time of her affair.
“I was done with you,” the Men in Black actor explained in July. “We decided that we were going to separate for a period of time and you go figure out how to make yourself happy and I’ll try to figure out how to make myself happy. I really felt like we could be over.”
Though Jada confirmed that she was in an “entanglement” with Alsina, she denied that the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum gave the relationship his blessing.
“It was a relationship. I was in a lot of pain, I was very broken. In the process of that relationship, I definitely realized that you can’t find happiness outside of yourself. Luckily enough, you and I were also going through a process in a much different matter,” the Angel Has Fallen actress added. “I would definitely say we did everything that we could to get away from each other, only to realize that that wasn’t possible. … I just wanted to feel good. It had been so long since I felt good.”
Soon after the longtime couple’s vulnerable conversation, an insider told Us Weekly exclusively that the Smith family was “really glad” that Will and Jada “put everything out in the open.”
“Will and Jada, at the end of the day, are like a normal couple who just happen to be glorified because they’re famous,” the source added. “They have fought. They have reconciled. At the end of the day, they do love each other.”
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