Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts. I think she's leaning more towards roll escaping.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I would be doing on the
Speaker 1: day off? It's gonna be sleepy night night time for me.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not gonna do that. Miya, What
Speaker 1: are you freaking kidding me? I don't sound good. Well,
Speaker 1: can you just find out um when she passed and
Speaker 1: what might be needed? And mh okay, what's going on? Jay?
Speaker 1: H oh past shame. She was so lovely, but she
Speaker 1: had brain cancer and I thought she was in remission.
Speaker 1: We just got word that she Oh wow, I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry to hear that. So can we just I just
Speaker 1: need a second and then we'll just come to the
Speaker 1: Red Table. Yes, h m hmm, let's roll cameras, all right,
Speaker 1: let me give her about We're doing a show about
Speaker 1: surviving loss. But what was so crazy was that as
Speaker 1: I was getting prepared for the show today, I get
Speaker 1: a phone call and I lost a friend. You remember Sha,
Speaker 1: Yeah what happened. She had brain cancer. So I had
Speaker 1: been thinking about her because I was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I should just check up one are just on the
Speaker 1: rag because she was in remission. I've literally known her
Speaker 1: for like as long as I can remember, Like she
Speaker 1: was coming over here when I was like six. I
Speaker 1: was going to give our red Table Talk viewers just
Speaker 1: an understanding of who Shay was. She used to braid
Speaker 1: our hair. But she was a really very intimate experience,
Speaker 1: just been there for hours and she's yeah, we've known
Speaker 1: her for so long, and she just became like a family,
Speaker 1: and you know, you were thinking about her, and you
Speaker 1: feel like why I should have picked up the phone
Speaker 1: and color and now I can't. I was thinking about
Speaker 1: her and now she doesn't know that. I always try
Speaker 1: to look at it lately, is you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's just part of life circle. Yeah, you know, but
Speaker 1: you're right. It still doesn't make it much easier to bear.
Speaker 1: That's why I always try to you know, you always
Speaker 1: have to reach out and tell people you love them,
Speaker 1: you do. Well, what's been your biggest loss? I would
Speaker 1: have to say, honestly, feel like I lost my sanity
Speaker 1: at one Okay, really. Yeah. It was after that whole
Speaker 1: With my Hair thing, and I had just like stopped
Speaker 1: doing lessons and I was kind of like just in
Speaker 1: this gray area of like who am I? Like is there?
Speaker 1: Like do I have a purpose? Like is there anything
Speaker 1: like that I can do besides this? So what my
Speaker 1: Hair was? How long ago? Like she was like nine
Speaker 1: years old? And that With my Hair was the hit
Speaker 1: record that you had out right, yes, like after the
Speaker 1: tour and the promotion and all of that, and it
Speaker 1: was like they wanted me to finish my album and
Speaker 1: I was just like, no, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 1: And then after all of that kind of settled down
Speaker 1: and it was like a a kind of low like
Speaker 1: I was just listening to a lot of dark music
Speaker 1: and like it was just so crazy and I was
Speaker 1: just like plunged into this like black hole and I
Speaker 1: was like cutting myself. What, yeah, I'm doing crazy things?
Speaker 1: Really when were you cutting yourself? And didn't like a
Speaker 1: long time ago cutting yourself weight on my wrist. I
Speaker 1: mean you can't even see it, but like there's still
Speaker 1: a little something there, but like totally lost my sanity
Speaker 1: for a moment there. I had no idea your brothers,
Speaker 1: didn't know friends. There's one one friend that new. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I never talked about it because it was such a short,
Speaker 1: weird point in my life. But you have to pull yourself.
Speaker 1: So why would you do why were you doing that
Speaker 1: out of it? You know? I honestly felt like I
Speaker 1: was experiencing so much emotional pain, but my physical circumstances
Speaker 1: were reflecting that. God and so so would you say
Speaker 1: that was part of the reason, Like that that the
Speaker 1: self harm makes makes the pain more tangible. It's actually
Speaker 1: something you can see and it becomes exactly instead of
Speaker 1: like a ghost like in your mind. Yeah, but one
Speaker 1: night I was just like, this is actually psychotic, and
Speaker 1: after that I just stopped. That's good to freaking like
Speaker 1: like five years Well, I had no idea. I never
Speaker 1: saw I never saw any signs of that. It's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. A lot of adolescent girls struggle with self harm.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is? Because I don't think
Speaker 1: a lot of that was going on when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, And I don't think I remember definitely happening.
Speaker 1: It was happening, but it wasn't It maybe just wasn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't. As there's more awareness now than I think
Speaker 1: when we were both coming up right, I've had a
Speaker 1: lot of plos. When I think about Pock passing away,
Speaker 1: I get mad at everybody. If I met Tupac at
Speaker 1: the Baltimore School for the Arts, and we had an
Speaker 1: instant connection, we became close friends very quickly. We were
Speaker 1: pretty much inseparable from the day that we met. When
Speaker 1: I heard about Pack passing away, I was actually in
Speaker 1: New York and I was supposed to be flying to
Speaker 1: see him. I remember my knees buckling and We'll having
Speaker 1: to catch me. I was just in total shock. I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of loss. So many of my close
Speaker 1: friends gone right, didn't make it pass. They didn't make
Speaker 1: it to thirty, they didn't make it pass, you know.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people, you know, talk about my
Speaker 1: relationship with Pac and trying to figure that out, you know,
Speaker 1: and that was a huge loss in my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he was one of those people that I expected
Speaker 1: to be here. My upset is more anger, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, because I feel that he left me,
Speaker 1: and I know that's not true, and it's a very
Speaker 1: selfish way to think about it, but I really did
Speaker 1: believe that he was going to be here for the
Speaker 1: long run. And so when I think about it, I
Speaker 1: still get really mad. I get mad at God, I
Speaker 1: get mad at him, I get mad at everybody, you know,
Speaker 1: also knowing that it happened right when a change was
Speaker 1: occurring in his life. Yeah, yeah, and so he didn't
Speaker 1: really get a chance to be he could, right, but
Speaker 1: he he played his role in you know, he did
Speaker 1: what he was meant to do in the minds of
Speaker 1: the generation that came next. Is a god. Yeah, still
Speaker 1: to this day, many generations. He's an icon, you know,
Speaker 1: And so that was what he was meant to do.
Speaker 1: What about you, gam what was your biggest loss, Scamster.
Speaker 1: I think I've had so many important people in my
Speaker 1: life that that I have lost. Most recently it was
Speaker 1: who happens to be your sister and sister, my oldest sister.
Speaker 1: But amazingly enough, that loss actually brought me to my joy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because when we lost Sondra, who was probably the kindest
Speaker 1: woman that I have ever known. We're on our way
Speaker 1: to pick up the rest of the meeting. Do you
Speaker 1: want to look in at our food? Yep? But I
Speaker 1: just never I felt like she was happy, and it
Speaker 1: just made me decide like, I gotta be happy in
Speaker 1: my life. Yeah, you know what I mean. I can't
Speaker 1: keep doing stuff that other people want me to do,
Speaker 1: and I'm miserable. You know. I had to leave some
Speaker 1: relationships and that gave me the freedom to just be
Speaker 1: authentically who I was. Whoever. That was still a journey.
Speaker 1: I always feel like I'm still kind of looking for myself,
Speaker 1: trying to find myself and at even at this age,
Speaker 1: but I didn't feel like I had to pretend to
Speaker 1: be somebody that I wasn't. I do believe that that's
Speaker 1: part of why pain exists, and I do believe that's
Speaker 1: part of why loss exists. Is that right if we
Speaker 1: didn't experience pain, would we really grow? And when we
Speaker 1: really appreciate, we appreciate joy what we appreciate, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And it's also the idea that pain
Speaker 1: motivates you. Pain is a motivating factor for you to
Speaker 1: make a change in your life, to do something different.
Speaker 1: When the producer first asked me, you know, what was
Speaker 1: the biggest loss I've had in my life? I said myself.
Speaker 1: And then when you realize that you've lost yourself, that's
Speaker 1: like devastating because It's just like, how do I get
Speaker 1: myself back in having children, being in a marriage and
Speaker 1: in this world of Hollywood and mother having a persona
Speaker 1: of like whatever people we're thinking infection, perfection, which was
Speaker 1: just like, how did that happen? That's been my life
Speaker 1: for the past twenty some years, battling and rearing damn
Speaker 1: giving up my career to raise my children. You know
Speaker 1: that was a battle. I know. Let me tell you.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you something, Willow, I would not change it.
Speaker 1: I love my family, don't get that wrong. But I
Speaker 1: got lost along the way. Then literally one day I
Speaker 1: just woke up and I'm like, what makes you happy?
Speaker 1: And literally had no idea to the point that I
Speaker 1: didn't even know how to like dress myself again. Fashion
Speaker 1: used to be my thing, but I just I'm just
Speaker 1: now starting to pay attention to that again. All these
Speaker 1: women out here on Xanax drinking shop, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's sad as me how a lot of women out
Speaker 1: here numbing theirselves just to survive in a way that
Speaker 1: they've been told they need to be to have happy lives.
Speaker 1: But expectation and that's that's a big loss. That's what
Speaker 1: I mean in regards to how we lose ourselves? Are
Speaker 1: you kids smiling? Okay? Is your husband thriving good? Everybody
Speaker 1: else around you thriving? Then you're doing good, Jada, you're
Speaker 1: doing good. And guess what. One day I woke up
Speaker 1: and I was withered, curled up in a ball, curled
Speaker 1: up in a ball. About to that. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel like what I need to keep doing is training
Speaker 1: my heart and my mind to accept and move with loss.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely correct, Willow, and the idea that loss is
Speaker 1: a part of life, and when we lose things, you know,
Speaker 1: it gives us an opportunity to be grateful, have gratitude
Speaker 1: for that time that we have with that person or
Speaker 1: that time of life that we had like a teenager
Speaker 1: and gently and willingly and openly constantly moving cold like
Speaker 1: water waterfall, waterfall, exactly. That's it. Here's two new beginnings.
Speaker 1: Here's two loving friends and family and loved ones that
Speaker 1: we've lost. Here's to the journey. Yeah, okay, so let
Speaker 1: me try it and you'll see. You'll you'll tell me
Speaker 1: if if you yeah, we could do it together. It's
Speaker 1: going through something I'll do. I'll we did. We I
Speaker 1: learned a lot about you today that I did not
Speaker 1: know that was perfect. In my mind, I feel fat.
Speaker 1: On the next Red Table Talk, we are talking about
Speaker 1: body confessions. So what was it the dead said to you?
Speaker 1: He said, dudes look at the mind of a skinny
Speaker 1: girl before they look at their body. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have been asking about why I've been wearing turbans. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not easy to talk about, but I am going
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Please keep the conversation going beyond
Speaker 1: the Red Table. Follow the official show page for new
Speaker 1: episodes and updates. To join the Red Table Talk family
Speaker 1: and become a part of the conversation, follow us at
Speaker 1: facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced by
Speaker 1: Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.