Cape Town - In a recent episode of her online show Red Table Talk, Jada Pinkett Smith’s (47) mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, opened up about the domestic violence she’d suffered at the hands of Jada’s father.
Jada started the show by revealing to her daughter, Willow Smith (18), and her mother, Adrienne – both of whom she co-hosts the show with – that she’d always known her late father, Robsol Pinkett (58), had been abusive, Entertainment Tonight reports.
“I knew early on that my mother and my father had a very violent relationship,” she said.
“She has a couple of scars on her body that, as a child I was just curious. I was like, ‘Oh mommy, what’s that? What’s that?’”
Adrienne then revealed that Robsol had been a violent drunk and even once pushed her over a banister, leaving her with scars on her back, E! News reports.
The 65-year-old added that her own mother, who’d been a social worker, had warned her about Robsol early on.
“He gave me a black eye once, and I tried to hide it from mommy, but she saw it,” Adrienne said.
“But I do know when enough gets to be enough, and you gotta’ get out of there. And I actually ran for my life,” she added.
Jada then spoke about the emotional abusive relationships she’d had, recalling once having to pull a knife on a former boyfriend, People magazine reports.
The Girls Trip star explained that her ex had started getting aggressive after he’d been drinking at a restaurant, prompting her to jump out of the car and run home, where she’d changed into a hoodie and tracksuit bottoms in case the situation got messy.
“I remember jumping in that sweatsuit, grabbing a big ol’ knife from the kitchen and hiding in his son’s room. He came through the back sliding door, like a creepy creep creep, like he was going to sneak up on me or something like that,” she said.
“I came out of his son’s bedroom and I was like, ‘Don’t come near me.’ And he said the quintessential line you hear in movies all the time, ‘You think I would hurt you? I’d never do that to you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m in trouble.’ I was in trouble.”
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Sources: E! News, Entertainment Tonight, People