On Red Table Talk Friday, Jada Pinkett Smith broke her silence, confirming rumors of a romantic relationship between herself and singer August Alsina.
At the top of the episode, which also featured the actress/host’s husband Will Smith (embedded below), Pinkett Smith confirmed she got into “a different kind of entanglement” with Alsina. Smith then clarified it was “a relationship.”
Pinkett Smith explained that her family’s connection with Alsina began over concern for the singer’s health, which occurred around the same time that Pinkett Smith and Smith were going through a rough patch. “We basically broke up,” she said.
“I was done with you,” Smith said through laughs. “We decided we were going to separate for a period of time… I really felt like we could be over.”
“I was in a lot of pain and I was very broken,” said Pinkett Smith. “In the process of that relationship, I definitely realized that you can’t find happiness outside of yourself.
“Through that particular journey, I learned so much about myself, and was able to really confront a lot of emotional immaturity, emotional insecurity, and I was really able to do some really deep healing,” she said.
While she was soul-searching about herself and her marriage, Alsina was the one who broke off all communication, which she called “understandable.” The two haven’t talked since, she said.
Pinkett Smith then said she and Smith have “gotten to that new place of unconditional love.”
The actress/host teased the news in a July 2 tweet writing, “There’s some healing that needs to happen… so I’m bringing myself to The Red Table,” leaving viewers and online commentators with nothing but their own speculation.
In a June 30 interview with The Breakfast Club co-host Angela Yee, Alsina claimed he sat down with Smith and had a conversation after he and Pinkett Smith were introduced by her son, Jaden Smith, in 2015.
“Due to the transformation from their marriage to life partnership… he gave me his blessing,” Alsina said. “I totally gave myself to that relationship for years of my life, and I truly and really, really deeply loved and have a ton of love for her. I devoted myself to it, I gave my full self to it, so much so to the point that I can die right now and be OK with knowing that I truly gave myself to somebody.
“I love these people. I really, genuinely do,” Alsina said of the Smith family. “I’ve never been in love in that kind of a way. Walking away from it butchered me. I’m shaking right now because it almost killed me. Not almost… it did. It pushed me into being another person, my newer self. It broke me down.”
Pinkett Smith’s tweet was the first time she publicly alluded to Alsina’s claims, having previously denied the story through her representation. She had also denied rumors that she and husband Will Smith were in an open relationship.
Following Alsina’s statements, Smith also denied (through reps) that he gave “permission for the affair.”
Red Table Talk premiered in May 2018 on Facebook Watch and features Pinkett Smith’s mom, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and her daughter, Willow. The streaming talk show focuses on a wide range of topics like motherhood, racism, addiction and love, with each woman bringing her unique perspective and candid personal life stories to the table.
Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have been married since 1997. They have two children, Jaden, 21, and Willow, 19, while Will’s son from a previous marriage, Trey, is 27.
Watch the full Red Table Talk episode below.
https://pmctvline2.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/jada-pinkett-smith-red-table-talk-1.jpg
