Willow Smith says she 'had to forgive' Jada Pinkett Smith for brushing off her anxiety when she was a kid
Arturo Holmes/FilmMagic
- Willow Smith said that she had to forgive Jada Pinkett Smith for not understanding her anxiety.
- Smith said that her mom not relating to her was "very frustrating for me as a child."
- Smith said that Pinkett Smith recently realized that she had been suppressing her own anxiety for years.
Willow Smith said that it took some time for Jada Pinkett Smith to comprehend her anxiety.
"It was rough," Smith said during a conversation with model Ireland Baldwin on the latest episode of "Red Table Talk" on Facebook Watch.
"I feel like when I was growing up, she didn't understand my anxiety because she, growing up, had seen her friends die. She had been through so much stuff that my issues to her kinda felt [smaller]," Smith continued. "And that was very frustrating for me as a child, because I was like, 'How can you not see my internal, emotional struggle?'"
Red Table Talk/Facebook Watch
Pinkett Smith, born and raised in Baltimore, has spoken about her experiences with drug addiction and gun violence. During a previous episode of "RTT," the actress said that witnessing gun violence became "the norm" when she was in middle and high school.
"You just get used to figuring out how to keep yourself safe in these environments and I try to tell people all the time, most of us grow up in war zones," she said. "And I did not even really realize that until my life changed when I started to look at how my kids were growing up versus me."
On Wednesday's episode of "RTT," Smith, the daughter of Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, said that she and her mom had a conversation about anxiety "really recently."
Smith said that Pinkett Smith came to the realization that she also experiences anxiety, but didn't realize it because she suppressed it for years.
"She had no idea," Smith said. "So, I kinda had to forgive her a little bit."
Courtesy of Red Table Talk/Facebook Watch; Jordan Fisher and Huy Doan
Elsewhere in the episode, Pinkett Smith said that it took her "a long time" to understand Smith and her anxiety because she had a vastly different, public lifestyle due to her famous family.
"I don't know what it's like to be a child under hot lights," she said. "And then just really not knowing how to comfort her, not knowing what help she needed, not understanding the behavior."
"In having to deal with and learn about her anxiety, I've had to look at some of my own behavior and behaviors of my mother and go, 'Well, of course I probably would have some anxiety in regards to how I grew up,'" Pinkett Smith added. "It was very difficult."
Smith later said to Pinkett Smith: "When you told me that you actually do experience anxiety, that changed my life. You're my best friend, what can I say."
Watch the full "Red Table Talk" episode below.