Jada Pinkett Smith talks about mom's drug overdose and history of sex addiction and alcohol abuse in her family
The Smith family has always been honest about their struggles, never shying away from real conversations, be it about their children or marriage. They even allowed close family friend Jordyn Woods to voice out her story during the Tristan Thomas scandal. In more recent news, Jada Pinkett Smith's mother, Adrienne Banfield-Jones, decided to help people that may be struggling during the COVID-19 mandatory quarantine, by opening up about her drug addition on the family show 'Red Table Talk'.
Grandmother Jones, 66, has been sober for over three decades now and openly spoke to daughter Jada and granddaughter Willow about her past addictions to drugs, in the episode titled, 'Coping With Addiction During COVID-19.'
Jada revealed to ET's Kevin Frazier about how it was hearing first hand about her mother's struggles admitting some of it was news to her. "My mother was just revealing the many times that she had overdosed which I didn't know. I didn't have knowledge of that. The great thing about Gam, and one of the reasons why I wanted to have this episode, is she's in her 30th year of sobriety and she has so much information to offer to those who are struggling right now."
During the struggle of being on lockdown, many people may either be prone to starting heavy habits or relapsing. Jada took this bigger picture into consideration as she spoke highly of her mother. "She just has some really veteran, useful tips in regards to how to stay clean, how to stay connected, and what to do.... It's like I always tell people, Never judge the journey you've been on because once you get through on the other side, you're gonna have so much to offer other people who are going through it as you once had."
Since the family is quarantined, Adrienne said she revisited one of her sobriety practices. "The quarantine, believe it or not, actually put me back in touch with going to meetings,” Adrienne said of attending self-help meetings. “My sponsor actually called me and let me know there were meetings online. I went to my old homegroup back in Baltimore. It was such a good feeling.”
This isn't the first struggle that the Smith family has shared. They are well accepted and credited for being so open and for raising awareness about the many struggles that celebrities seem to be immune to. In 2019, Jada had also confronted husband Will Smith on his fondness for alcohol consumption. After revealing that she "doesn’t drink a lot of alcohol at all, anymore," she asked her husband about his alcohol usage to which he had replied, "On vacation time... it was a lot."
"I remember reaching a rock bottom that time I was in the house by myself and I had those two bottles of wine and was going for the third bottle," Jada said, according to Too Fab. "And I was like, 'Now hold up. You're in this house by yourself going onto your third bottle of wine? You might have a problem,'" Jada said on the show where the parents were joined by their three kids, Trey, 26, Jaden, 21, and Willow, 18.
Jada also went on to speak of unhealthy coping mechanisms bringing in sex addiction as a topic, saying, "My sort of addictions jump, they jump around," she said. "When I was younger, I definitely think I had a sex addiction of some kind. That everything could be fixed by sex. You know what I’m saying?"