Jada Pinkett Smith once admitted that she got involved with Will Smith “too soon” after he split from his first wife, Sheree Zampino, back in 1995.
She elaborated on the confession during the latest episode of Red Table Talk on Wednesday, which also featured Zampino and centred around the topic of “toxic forgiveness.”
Pinkett Smith said on the Facebook Watch show that while the two have “developed a really nice sisterhood” over the years, it “hasn’t been easy along the way” because the two “were both very fiery.”
“I’m imagining it definitely took some forgiveness on your part, ’cause I can remember a few times that I really crossed the line,” Pinkett Smith said as the group giggled at the table.
“I would have definitely had taken a beat as far as putting myself in the dynamic of you guys,” Pinkett Smith said, wishing she’d said something along the lines of “‘Let’s give this a year, let’s let you two just flesh out whatever y’all have to figure out.’”
Zampino recalled a specific time that Pinkett Smith apologised for hastily getting involved with Smith and the son he shared with Zampino before the couple had even divorced.
“I remember you coming to me, and you were teary, you were very emotional and you said, ‘I just didn’t know,’” Zampino said. “And basically what you were saying is, ‘I was in the picture too soon.’ And you apologised for that.”
“Divorces ain’t no joke,” Zampino added. “So thank you, ’cause you’ve always been one to, like, you know, ‘Ree, I done missed it. Forgive me.’ And we were able to move on.”
Pinkett Smith again owned up to being with Smith so publicly after his split and told Zampino that she realised “you didn’t even have time to adjust” after breaking up with her then-husband.
“You had no time,” Pinkett Smith added. “I didn’t understand that, ’cause you know, it was like a boyfriend. Like, ‘When you’re done with a joker, you’re done.’ But that’s not how marriage works.”
The two previously spoke about their rocky start on a 2018 episode of Red Table Talk, when Pinkett Smith spoke about dating Smith while he was separated from Zampino but still technically married.
At the end of the 2018 episode, Pinkett Smith said she was “so grateful” that the Real Housewives star was “one of the main people in my life that has forced me to expand in a way that was beyond anything I imagined.”
Two years after Smith and Zampino’s divorce was finalised, Pinkett Smith and her now-husband wed in 1997. Zampino later remarried football player Terrell Fletcher, though the couple split in 2015.