Jada Had A Brutal Reaction To Willow's Emotional Breakdown

Jada Pinkett Smith has opened up about the struggles she and her husband, Will, have experienced throughout their marriage on her Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk. In the show’s most recent episode, however, she delves into her once strained relationship with their daughter, Willow, and admits to once ignoring her tears as a child.

“Back in the day, if I would be crying or have an upset, the energy was always like, ‘Take that somewhere else and deal with it on your own,'” Willow explained before her mother, grandmother and guests Demi Moore and her daughters.

Admitting to not being the most emotionally available to her daughter at the time, Jada explained that there was something holding her back.

“That’s how I was treating myself,” she said. “I didn’t want to be with my own feelings. There’s this wall, this armor, and I was thinking about how it does a disservice to everybody we love, including ourselves.”

The actress went on to apologize to the “Whip My Hair” singer before adding that her upbringing forced her to be strong, which included perceiving tears to be “offensive.”

“The way we grew up, the way my mother grew up, you feel like you have to be strong and the first thing you want to do is teach your girls how to be strong,” she said. “There was a time when her tears were so offensive to me, so offensive. I was like, ‘Take that over there, we can’t afford that here.’ Not realizing, ‘B***h, you can afford that here. You’re not in Baltimore anymore, OK? You absolutely can afford it here.'”

Now the two have overcome that hump, with the Girls Trip star explaining that a recent emotional moment Willow had opened her eyes to a regret she had while raising her.

“Willow had a moment not too long ago, when you had that upset and you were crying on the couch and I just came to you and held you and I said to myself, ‘I wish I had done this more to her,'” she said. “When you can just hold your little girl, have her tears, have her pain.”

Watch the full Red Table Talk episode below: