Healing the rift: Jada Pinkett Smith and Gabrielle Union bring their 17-year feud to an end
Jada Pinkett Smith and Gabrielle Union are ready to move on and start a new chapter in their life with each other's friendship. The duo sat down together as Gabrielle appeared in the latest episode of Jada's Red Table Talk Facebook Watch show. While the two found it hard to think of the reason which drove them apart, they did confess to feeling a lot of tension between each other for close to 17 years.
Earlier in an interview on Today's show, Gabrielle told host Hoda Kotb about what she actually thought the feud had been. “Jada nor I ever used the word feud, so it just became more of a media creation,” she said. “Kind of like back in the day, neither one of us actually knows what originally took place back then. But the people we had around us were like ‘well you know how she feels about you’ and they were like, ‘well you know how she feels about you.’ And then it was like ‘girl bye’ for 17 years. Even though we’re both very outspoken women, both activists, our husbands are friends, I worked with her husband, we both had too much pride and too much insecurities to just say, ‘Hey, did that ever actually happen or was that just a creation of someone who didn’t want to see two women rise together?’”
“This is a very special show for me because what I decided to do was make this about creating a new girlfriend,” Jada told her mom, Adrienne Banfield-Jones.“Gab and I, we had a bit of a break, we don’t know how, and she’s been open to this healing, she’s been open to this conversation.” Jada recalled how she felt after giving Gabrielle a call to invite her on the show.
“It felt so good on the phone with you to even just go, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that I didn’t even take the time to talk to you,’ you know?” she said. “And then I had to just apologize and just thinking to myself, ‘Damn, Jada! That was some petty ass s–t!’ But at the same time going, ‘Well, that’s where you were then. Thank God you’re someplace else now.'”
In the episode, Gabrielle is seen baring her soul. She spoke about being at her lowest after her divorce from her first husband, former NFL player Chris Howard. “I had to hit rock bottom, I had to lose everything,” Gabrielle told Jada. “For me that was my first marriage, going through the divorce process. I lost my show, my show was canceled. And I was having difficult relationships with my BFFs, my day ones. And it was everyone’s fault but my own.”
As for their feud, Gabrielle confessed that she could have been the one to end the feud but felt that it wasn't necessary, thinking "it's not going affect my life," but it did. Working with fitness trainer and life coach AJ Johnson, Gabrielle realized that she had been looking at relationships with negativity. "She got me right between the eyes, it was harsh at the moment, but it was like, damn, I have been communicating through negativity," she explained.
She added that after talking to Jada it was like "a gorilla hopped off my back that I didn't even know was there. I needed that, I needed you. So, thank you," she said. To this, the Girls Trip star replied, "I hope from here on out that we have a bond and you know, you can call on me for anything,' before gifting Gabrielle a key necklace. Let this key be a reminder that you are the key to your power."