Photo: Jordan Fisher
Jada Pinkett Smith broached a touchy subject with her mother on the latest episode of their Facebook Watch show,Red Table Talk.
Pinkett Smith, 50, and mom Adrienne Banfield-Norris, who co-host the hit show together, put it all on the table in a conversation about what Pinkett Smith said was a lack of physical affection from Banfield-Norris while growing up.
“One of the things that was so missing in my relationship with my mother and with Jada was just touch,” Banfield-Norris, 68, said in Wednesday’s episode.
The episode is titled “How Destructive Mothers Damage Their Daughters: Could This Be You?” Willow Smith, 21, Pinkett Smith and husbandWill Smith’s daughter, also joined the conversation to share how their maternal bonds shaped them.
Pinkett Smith added that “cuddles” were not common in her relationship with her mother in a talk with author Kelly McDaniel, who joined the hosts to promote her bookMother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Health From Lost Nurturance, Protection and Guidance.
“Very rarely will you see Jada and I even touch, hug,” Banfield-Norris said. “It’s awkward because we didn’t hug in our family. We knew we were loved, but it just wasn’t that kind of nurturing touch.”
“She never cuddled with me,” said Pinkett Smith about her mother.
The co-hosts discussed how Willow had an upbringing with more physical touch, with Banfield-Norris noting that she cuddled Willow often as a new grandmother.
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“It felt so good to be able to have that, and I never had it. When I had it with you, then I missed it with Jada. I realized how much I miss with her,” Banfield-Norris told Willow in the episode.
Inanother clip of the episode, Pinkett Smith added that her childhood was fraught with adult stress, calling herself a “terrified little girl underneath” her stoic facade.
“I had to, like, deal with a lot of stressful adult things at a young age. I didn’t have the ability to deal with the emotions that were coming with it. I just had to buck up,” she said.
“So those women you see that you think are so strong, there’s this terrified little girl underneath. And that’s me,” the star adds, holding back tears and nodding her head as Willow says to her, “Oh, Mommy.”
source: people.com
