Last week Jada Pinkett Smith turned heads when she revealed on her Facebook page that she’d battled with many forms of unnamed “addictions” during her younger years. Now her former stepdad, Warren A. Brown, has opened up to the press about his own drug use during his time as a father to young Pinkett Smith.
In a recent interview with Celebuzz, Brown, who is now a successful attorney in Baltimore, Maryland, talks about his marriage to Pinkett Smith’s mother, Adrienne Banfield-Jones, whom he married in 1979 when the young A-list actress was just 8. Banfield-Jones has previously admitted that she was an addict while raising Pinkett Smith and Brown claims that he feels guilty about exposing Pinkett Smith to drugs at a young age.
“At times I felt guilty,” Brown said. “I remember just the three of us in the house together and I knew I was high and so was her mother.”
However, Brown claims that Pinkett Smith was too young to be fully aware of what was going on.
“She didn’t know though, she was too young to recognize it. She didn’t see us doing anything. But I felt really bad because I thought this little girl deserves better than her parents being addicted,” said Brown.
Brown added that cocaine was his drug of choice and that he spent a lot of time watching a young Jada for Banfield-Jones.
“While we were both dealing with that, I was still going to court and she was going to school and working. She left it up to me to watch Jada,” he added.
Brown says that he, Pinkett Smith and Banfield-Jones were “thick as thieves” as a family and that he and Jada were always together. But when he divorced Banfield-Jones in 1986, things quickly changed and he ultimately abandoned Pinkett Smith.
“We spent a lot of time together,” he said. “But once I separated from her and her mom, I quickly got remarried and my new wife asked that I distance myself from her. So it was a sudden departure for Jada, and it was always just the two of us.”
He also added, “It’s difficult to feel guilty. I don’t really blame myself, but I think about a couple of things. I question that if I had not divorced myself from them, whether or not she would have fallen into addictions. And if I had been around I may have witnessed it and been able to pull her out of it.”
“Anyone who knew of our relationship would not disagree that my estrangement with her may have played a part,” admitted Brown.
“I loved that little girl,” he said.
Thankfully, all three of them are clean of their addictions and are happy in their new lives. Check out some other celebrities who battled drug addictions below. – nicholas robinson
