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
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. On this Red Table talk an incredible
Speaker 1: story of survival, you were found outside and trash. An
Speaker 1: inspiring conversation with my good friend Tommy Davidson. Do you
Speaker 1: say mom saved your life? I just want to thank you.
Speaker 1: That's the reason why I'm here. Tommy is one of
Speaker 1: the most entertaining people you will ever meet. You may
Speaker 1: recognize him from in Living color, dozens of movies, or
Speaker 1: a stand up but behind his laughter was a world
Speaker 1: of pain, one that I witnessed firsthand. And now he's
Speaker 1: come to the Red Table to tell us how he
Speaker 1: survived and thrived. He's a miracle. She shouldn't be here.
Speaker 1: What's up? Girl? Are you? Absolutely? Absolutely? Because we're just
Speaker 1: gonna go straight to the table. Don't start because I
Speaker 1: know you're about to. I'm about to take when you
Speaker 1: sent the campas with me? God, is this the Red Table?
Speaker 1: This is the Red Table, Tommy After comedian Tommy Davidson
Speaker 1: has been a family friend for more than twenty years,
Speaker 1: and I wanted him to come to the Red Table
Speaker 1: to share his journey. It has been one of ultimate
Speaker 1: survival against all odds. Tommy, I'm glad to be here,
Speaker 1: glad to be there. Ye. Anticipating being here has been
Speaker 1: a little bit hard for me because talking about this stuff,
Speaker 1: I never did. You know. What's interesting is that I've
Speaker 1: known your long time in aspect of your journey. That
Speaker 1: I didn't know was the beginning of your story. That
Speaker 1: you were found outside in trash. So it was an
Speaker 1: abandoned house. There's a woman she went in. There was
Speaker 1: nothing but kids in there, doing drugs and drinking. But
Speaker 1: when she was leaving, she said, something told me to
Speaker 1: look under this tire that was in a pile of
Speaker 1: trash next to the house. She said, When I moved
Speaker 1: the tire, I saw your foot. When I moved to trash,
Speaker 1: you were laying there right, had a torn red shirt.
Speaker 1: I had contusions in my skull, like I've been hit
Speaker 1: and starved. And were you close to death? Yeah? They
Speaker 1: didn't think I was gonna live. I was in a coma.
Speaker 1: Who knows how long I've been there. Dirty the stranger
Speaker 1: who found baby Tommy in the trash was Barbara Gene Davidson,
Speaker 1: a mother of two. As he clung to life in
Speaker 1: the hospital, Barbara Jeane made a decision that would change
Speaker 1: her life and his life forever. She adopted Tommy and
Speaker 1: brought him home. My mom was my hero. She was
Speaker 1: like the most fierce protector. He was welcomed by his
Speaker 1: new brother Michael and sister Borrow, born just thirty five
Speaker 1: days apart. Berlin Tommy were raised as twins and were inseparable.
Speaker 1: We shared a room until we were like fourteen. Brill
Speaker 1: is my rock. She's definitely my other half. They lived
Speaker 1: in an all white town. Tommy felt like he belonged
Speaker 1: from day one when she adopted you, this little black boy.
Speaker 1: She's from wild How was it for the rest of
Speaker 1: her family bringing you into the fold. I never felt
Speaker 1: for one minute that I was different at all interesting.
Speaker 1: And you know, I learned my colors from the crayons,
Speaker 1: so I know brown brown was a brown cray and
Speaker 1: my sister was peach. I thought I was a brown
Speaker 1: one of whatever we were. Because I grew up on farms.
Speaker 1: The horse would have a colt. The horse could be
Speaker 1: a brown horse and have a black cult, you know.
Speaker 1: Or a dog can be a brown dog or a
Speaker 1: white dog and have like a speckled one, have a
Speaker 1: brown one, have a white one. So I thought I
Speaker 1: was a brown one of whatever we were. My grandfather
Speaker 1: was the first one who started telling me about race.
Speaker 1: He was trying to prepare you. I was playing with
Speaker 1: my cowboys and Indians, and he said, I want you
Speaker 1: to know that the Indians of the heroes, you know,
Speaker 1: and I want you to know that all cowboys didn't
Speaker 1: kill Indians. I'm a cowboy, you know. And I was like, Okay.
Speaker 1: One of the things that came out of my experience
Speaker 1: is that all white people are not the same. But
Speaker 1: when I got the d C, this is when we
Speaker 1: all changed. Because we moved into d C. During the riots,
Speaker 1: we king got shot and every day after school, grown
Speaker 1: white men were chasing me home. I would barely get
Speaker 1: in the house. How I was five people were throwing
Speaker 1: in our window, shooting, and that's the first time I
Speaker 1: heard the word nigger. It was crazy, and that really
Speaker 1: heard me. Yeah, I mean that really really hurt me
Speaker 1: because I'm like, no, what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 1: Two sides or something? Yeah, I don't know anything about this, Like,
Speaker 1: what the hell? It was like a bomb went off
Speaker 1: in my brain and I was somewhere playing and They're going,
Speaker 1: get nigger, get them to white teenagers, chase me in.
Speaker 1: These big black dudes came out. White boys went the
Speaker 1: other way. And I've been black ever since. That was
Speaker 1: the day. Yeah, that was the day. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, they came out from nowhere, man, Man I said, yeah, Mike,
Speaker 1: I was said, man, I guess I am black. You know.
Speaker 1: Let me look at you, Let me look into this,
Speaker 1: Let me look into this, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the moment that you that it stamped. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting that she moved the entire family too. I
Speaker 1: remember we moved there. We had our little radio and
Speaker 1: Ball of Confusion was playing. It could have been something
Speaker 1: in a movie. And there's people moving in, people moving out. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all this color of the skin. Yeah, run run run
Speaker 1: what do do do? Do Do? Do? Do do do do? Ball
Speaker 1: of Confusion? I was like, where are we? Did she
Speaker 1: ever explain to you why she did that? She made
Speaker 1: sure that I was in the a black neighborhood, But
Speaker 1: for my brother and sister, it was hard. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think deep inside my mother. You know she did that
Speaker 1: for me. You know, black girls want to drop my sister.
Speaker 1: You know, I had to fight them. And at the
Speaker 1: same time I was like the hero of the neighborhood
Speaker 1: because I could sing really good, like really good ever
Speaker 1: since I was like five, So my mother would impress
Speaker 1: her friends. You asked me, come over here, put me
Speaker 1: on the table, take a spoon, put tend foil on it,
Speaker 1: put on chain, chain, chain, respect, put on saying loud,
Speaker 1: I'm black, and I'm proud, and you I'm doing a
Speaker 1: Mustang and and and and doing the pony and killing it.
Speaker 1: I had sliding the family song, you know, get friends,
Speaker 1: clokes for different folks and so on and so on,
Speaker 1: and shoot be Dooby doo by Shy Shy where that
Speaker 1: lived go? You know what I mean? Him every different.
Speaker 1: It seems like you had the coolest white mom. Oh yeah, man,
Speaker 1: there there ain't there ain't no, there ain't no doubt
Speaker 1: about that. My mom said, Tommy, you have a way
Speaker 1: of putting things that makes people happy so fast that
Speaker 1: all they can do is laugh. But I never thought
Speaker 1: it would lead to comedy. At two, Tommy went to
Speaker 1: an amateur Mike Knight for the first time and killed it.
Speaker 1: His career took off. Eventually, his talent caught the eye
Speaker 1: of the Wayands Brothers, landing him a coveted role on
Speaker 1: the iconic sketch series in Living Color. His dream of
Speaker 1: making it big was fun of coming true. He went
Speaker 1: on the Star and dozens of films and TV shows,
Speaker 1: But despite all the money, fame, and star treatment, Tommy
Speaker 1: was far from happy. Tommy and I did two movies together,
Speaker 1: as you already know, Bamboozled and Will. Yeah, the first
Speaker 1: time that we worked together. And I really got to
Speaker 1: know you. On the set of Woo. I came out
Speaker 1: for a scene and you looked at me, and you
Speaker 1: were like, something's wrong with you? Like what you're talking about?
Speaker 1: Did she just get to work? You know, there's a
Speaker 1: million people around doing stuff, gammer action, you know, And
Speaker 1: and I said, ain't that wrong? And she said, rung
Speaker 1: wrong with you? And I was like to start the day.
Speaker 1: She was like, nah, she said, come here, what's wrong
Speaker 1: with you? I said, my my mother contacting my real mother,
Speaker 1: and you know she was on the phone. I got
Speaker 1: a chance to talk to her, but I ain't gonna
Speaker 1: deal with that. She said, oh really, Okay, hold on,
Speaker 1: that's a wrap, everybody, that's the day. All right, you
Speaker 1: go deal with that all right later. And it led
Speaker 1: from our converse Asian to me finally meeting my biological mom.
Speaker 1: When he was thirty eight years old, Tommy met his
Speaker 1: birth mother for the first time all my life. I
Speaker 1: was mad at her. I always would say, where are you?
Speaker 1: I had a lot of resentment and anger for her. Abandonedy,
Speaker 1: Tommy continued to channel his pain into his performances, and
Speaker 1: then drugs led him to a tragic tipping point in
Speaker 1: his life. In his book Living in Color, Tommy admits
Speaker 1: that his addiction undid everything he accomplished and nearly killed
Speaker 1: him one night at a girlfriend's house after oding on cocaine.
Speaker 1: Paramedics rushed him to the hospital with no clothes on,
Speaker 1: strapped to a gurney. The fallout broken relationships with a
Speaker 1: string of women and four of his children. What was
Speaker 1: the thing that got you into the heavier stuff? The
Speaker 1: first time you get cocaine? I was sixteen. I gave
Speaker 1: it to me. Everybody had it right at all the time,
Speaker 1: and I said, Okay, I'm gonna try it. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is kind of dandy. Ain't nothing. I don't think
Speaker 1: nothing about it. And it just became one of the things,
Speaker 1: one of the things. Yeah, no, it became the thing.
Speaker 1: It got really really bad. You know, I lost a marriage,
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, it was just it's just one
Speaker 1: of those things that just kept on going, kept on going.
Speaker 1: That's when Spike actually called my mother. He asked me,
Speaker 1: you know, because I went to him and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time here. So he went on
Speaker 1: and told me about his father, how his father was
Speaker 1: strung out for years and what it did to his family.
Speaker 1: And the main thing was to gather my strength. He said,
Speaker 1: I have a selfish motive. I need you in this movie,
Speaker 1: but most of all, you know, you need to be
Speaker 1: okay for your family, for you. You were kind of
Speaker 1: in and out of rehab. The whole world that I
Speaker 1: thought was it wasn't. Yeah, because I had it all backwards.
Speaker 1: See what I was thinking is is if I just
Speaker 1: could be successful, if I just could get this right.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, you know, I'm gonna give me
Speaker 1: an Oscar and Emmy and all that stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get that stuff. And they became that, you know,
Speaker 1: get the house and have this and have the money
Speaker 1: and have the then everything is gonna be cool. So
Speaker 1: I would do that and then it would fall, and
Speaker 1: I would do that, and then it will fall, and
Speaker 1: then I would do that, and I couldn't understand why
Speaker 1: why am I not making this connection? When I became
Speaker 1: addicted to drugs, you know, I was a functioning addict
Speaker 1: just the same. But those kinds of successes are the
Speaker 1: kinds of things that keep you in denial about who
Speaker 1: you are and where you really are. Yeah, I call
Speaker 1: it being a functional addict, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the bottom. Yet, what was the point that you hit
Speaker 1: your bond? In Philadelphia? I did a show. I was
Speaker 1: going on stage that night. My talent was gone. Wow,
Speaker 1: So what do you mean by that? That thing that
Speaker 1: came out of my mouth so naturally was gone. It's
Speaker 1: like it was more than that. I wouldn't consider that
Speaker 1: a bomb. What I would consider that is a solid message.
Speaker 1: If I gave it to you, I can take it
Speaker 1: from you now. Are you are on my team? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He stripped you. And so that was in front of
Speaker 1: five thousand people. The next Dad, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: go to a dog on a meeting, but I went
Speaker 1: and there was a guy in there and he was
Speaker 1: talking about how he's going to the NFL and how
Speaker 1: drinking and stuff like that. I took all of it
Speaker 1: from him. What he said that got my attention was
Speaker 1: he said, all my life, I thought that people were
Speaker 1: stabbing me in my back. And I turned around to
Speaker 1: see that I'm the one with a knife in my hand,
Speaker 1: and I was like, it's me. It's me. It's not
Speaker 1: if the white white ex wife for you do this.
Speaker 1: It's not if if you treat me right, It's not
Speaker 1: if racism wasn't it were not. It was me. Do
Speaker 1: you say, Mom saved your life? Right? And you called
Speaker 1: me and I called you, and I was in Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: and you was like, Hey, what's up you are? And
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I'm all right. You said, hold
Speaker 1: long the reinforcement, because by that time you had already
Speaker 1: been exposed to the prom right. But it's the process,
Speaker 1: it's something that had to take had to take its hold,
Speaker 1: you know. And I just want to thank you because
Speaker 1: that saved my life. And that was one of the
Speaker 1: many things that happened that that are the reason why
Speaker 1: I'm here. Wow, when your mother passed, she could hardly talk,
Speaker 1: you know, and she's really worried about me all those years.
Speaker 1: But then I was doing fine, but it was still
Speaker 1: hard to really trust that I'm gonna be okay because
Speaker 1: she's passing away now. In two thousand and six, Tommy
Speaker 1: lost his beloved adoptive mother, the woman who rescued him
Speaker 1: from the trash, to a rare form of cancer. When
Speaker 1: my mom passed away, I realized that I am my
Speaker 1: mother's greatest accomplishment. She shaped me, and she knew that
Speaker 1: she was sending out into the world somebody who can
Speaker 1: give love. And that's my purpose. So when I'm asked,
Speaker 1: what's your greatest accomplishment, it's being Barbara Davidson's youngest son, Tommy.
Speaker 1: The last thing I did was seeing her, your mom,
Speaker 1: and she just love. I sing, She's love. I can
Speaker 1: sing love. I can sing. That's saying Kenny Logan song
Speaker 1: way a little while, take the time and find his
Speaker 1: way to you. As soon as you're no longer try
Speaker 1: Suddenly it'll be staring in your eyes. Don't forget it
Speaker 1: if you let come to you. And that was my
Speaker 1: last words there. Right, It sounds like to me that
Speaker 1: there was a lot that happened during your addiction journey.
Speaker 1: Are you still in that process of like repairing that
Speaker 1: with your kids. Yeah. One of the things that's come
Speaker 1: with my life is not to apologize, but to a tone.
Speaker 1: M and a friend of mine taught me that because
Speaker 1: I didn't know what a tone meant, because apology doesn't
Speaker 1: mean anything if your behavior say so, she explained it
Speaker 1: to me. She said, apology is saying sorry, but sorry
Speaker 1: runs out like a old cartridge. But to atone for
Speaker 1: something is to change the behavior. Absolutely. Our torment and
Speaker 1: our healing came from me watching her be a maternal
Speaker 1: support and grandmother to my children that she might not
Speaker 1: have been for me as a child, but she was
Speaker 1: right there all the time, making severe sacrifices to be
Speaker 1: that for me and for my children in the way
Speaker 1: that really just dissolved anything that had happened in the past.
Speaker 1: And so I understand that atonement because she was a
Speaker 1: new person, it wasn't even anything to talk about, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. But what I tell you what
Speaker 1: has been really painful for me in in our journey too,
Speaker 1: is to see um Jada's relationship with her children and
Speaker 1: realize all that she missed with me. That has been
Speaker 1: extremely extremely painful for me too. I mean, I'm happy
Speaker 1: for it and I'm so proud of her, but you know,
Speaker 1: and the loss is just as much mine as it
Speaker 1: is yours. So it's difficult. It is. I hope for
Speaker 1: you that there will be an opening in some way
Speaker 1: to really have a deep healing with your kids, because
Speaker 1: it ain't gonna happen overnight because we I mean we
Speaker 1: I think we still struggle. You know, it's just such
Speaker 1: a process and I just don't think it ever. My
Speaker 1: oldest daughter, you know, she you know I ain't done
Speaker 1: her right now, you know what I mean. So that's okay, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I found a picture of us, so I took it
Speaker 1: in ten into her phone. Yeah, I said, this is
Speaker 1: who we are. Yeah, you know what I mean, And
Speaker 1: just let it, let it be, Let it be. It
Speaker 1: takes time and those openings occur. So what words of
Speaker 1: wisdom would you have for people that are going through
Speaker 1: hard any kind of struggle right now? Have courage enough
Speaker 1: to try someone with their secrets, Oh, and let them
Speaker 1: help you, Let them help you, because it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of courage to do that, it does, you know,
Speaker 1: Because are you gonna love me the same if I
Speaker 1: tell you some of stuff I really did, and you'd
Speaker 1: be surprised that they will. You'll be surprised that another
Speaker 1: world opens up. People have a whole another world opens up,
Speaker 1: you know. And I never really thought about how much
Speaker 1: help helps until I needed it. Yeah. The one person
Speaker 1: Tommy says helped him through all his hard times is
Speaker 1: his beloved twin sister Burrow. Even though they now live
Speaker 1: on opposite coasts, Burlin Tommy still talk every day, but
Speaker 1: it's been over a year since they last saw each other. Man,
Speaker 1: that's my twin. How to get being there in that
Speaker 1: chair out for? Can we bring that chair out? Welcome?
Speaker 1: All right, y'all ask for it. Hi, Hi, nice to
Speaker 1: meet you. Welcome to the table. Yes, it's so nice
Speaker 1: to meet you. I heard that you guys are how
Speaker 1: how far apart twins? I just thought it was so
Speaker 1: interesting that you guys were raised as twins. We're in
Speaker 1: the same grade, same grade until seventh grade. That has
Speaker 1: to be a trip. Well, you know, you're all I
Speaker 1: have and all i've had, So you mean the world
Speaker 1: to me. You're everything really everything I protected growing up
Speaker 1: and everything that was important to me. Was you. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm the crier in the family, soo wow. Would you
Speaker 1: say that in seeing Tommy now and everything you've seen
Speaker 1: him come through, would you say that you're proud of
Speaker 1: your brother? Oh my god, Yes, he has been through everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you are here. She shouldn't be here, right, shouldn't
Speaker 1: this right here? You know what we've been through, you know,
Speaker 1: for us to be sitting here. She man, she was
Speaker 1: all ahead. Mm hmmm. Yeah, I'll tell you what. It
Speaker 1: has been wonderful just to have the opportunity to see
Speaker 1: you guys together and feel and feel like okay for real,
Speaker 1: for real. Thank you so much for coming and blessing
Speaker 1: the Red Table. Thanks guys, thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is good. This was beautiful. Hey R T T family.
Speaker 1: Join our Red Table Talk group on Facebook to become
Speaker 1: part of the conversation and be sure to follow the
Speaker 1: show page to catch up on all our episodes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's good for us. You don't know how when we
Speaker 1: have black men come to the table and honest about
Speaker 1: that story, we don't have it often, and it brings
Speaker 1: a humanity because people just look at our men going
Speaker 1: through and they don't know why. They don't hear the
Speaker 1: stories in order to understand where our men are coming from.
Speaker 1: To join the red table Talk family and become a
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Speaker 1: of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch, Westbrook Audio,
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