Jada Pinkett Smith says her family can survive anything in the wake of being accused of “abusing” her daughter.
Back in 2014, she and her husband Will Smith were investigated by the Los Angeles Department of Children & Family Services after a picture of Willow, then 13, appeared online showing her lying on a bed alongside her friend, 20-year-old Moises Arias.
The Smiths were cleared of any wrongdoing and the “Red Table Talk” hostess, Pinkett Smith, said it has made the whole family stronger than ever. The actress went on to explain that the incident led to her being even more candid.
“We’ve been through so much as a family, it takes a lot to rock us,” Pinkett Smith told MailOnline. “Once you’ve survived having child protection services come to your house because someone called and said, ‘You’re abusing Willow, you’re not feeding her…’
“When you’ve gone through crazy stuff like that, whatever you’ve spoken about at the ‘Red Table Talk,’ doesn’t mean anything, due to the storms you’ve survived off of that table.
“We’ve survived so much as a family, so that’s one of the things I’m grateful for. We hold it down together and give each other that freedom to speak our truth.”
Meanwhile, Pinkett Smith insisted she is in a “really good place” in both her personal and professional lives. She credits her work on the Facebook Watch show “Red Table Talk” – in which she appears alongside her daughter Willow and mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones – with helping her to strike that perfect balance.
“It’s just kind of that transition. You have to do things much differently in the second half of life as you see that you need different things to be happy. I’m in a really good place professionally and personally. This show has really helped my personal self-growth as well,” she disclosed on the U.K. TV show “Lorraine.”
The Girls Trip star – who also has son Jaden, 21, with Will – has been planning “Red Table Talk” since Willow, 18, was just 11 years old. Pinkett Smith said the idea stemmed from her desire for her daughter to hear all about her grandmother’s story.
“It all started when Willow was 11 and … I thought, ‘Wow there are three generations of us, and we’ve been through varying things as three generations.’ I saw that Willow doesn’t really know my story or her grandmother’s – so that’s really how the whole concept was birthed.”
