Stan EvansRed Table Talk has had many effects—just ask its famous host.
After more than a year online, the Facebook Watch show Jada Pinkett Smith co-hosts with her famous daughter, Willow Smith, and mother Adrienne Banfield Norris has become a go-to for real and raw conversations about the many elements of life, some very uncomfortable, from marriage and motherhood to polyamory and pornography. Such was Smith's intent for the show from the start.
"I'm very lucky that I have really difficult, transparent conversations with my family," the actress said in a new interview on Lorraine, noting the original Red Table Talk first took place when Willow was 11 years old for Mother's Day.
"We've all been through various things from different generations," Smith said. "I realized, too, Willow didn't really know my story or my mother's story either because we live with people that we think we know and we don't really know them and so that's really how the whole concept was birthed."
All these years later, the impactful show has amassed an impressive audience and a Daytime Emmy nod.
"For me, I think in this day and age there is so much transparency—but what we're actually watching is like—how healthy is it? How is it improving our lives? So, I really felt like having a show that shows communication."
The Angel Has Fallen actress continued, "Everybody's hurting. Everybody's in a struggle and we're just figuring out, trying to figure out how to do this thing called life...so really, that's what our show is about and really us sharing our own experiences of what we've been through and how we've navigated through struggle."
In return, the show helped Smith as she transitioned into the second half of her life as it was something she wanted to do. "You realize that you need different things in order to be happy. That was across my whole life personally and professionally," she said during the interview. "I'm in a really good place and this particular program has really helped my own personal self-growth as well."