Jada Pinkett Smiths talk show might be the best reason not to delete your account.
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Ciaras publicistssuck in their breath and grab each others forearms in the slightest of panics.
Is she gonna go there?
1 whispers to Publicist No.
2, anxiously leaning toward the monitor in video village.
Ciara arranges her face into a big, gleaming smile.
She looks down and pushes back herfaux-locks.
Shes deciding how to answer.
She and Future had a notoriously sour split in 2014, and Ciara rarely gives updates.
All three hosts wait with their eyes trained on her.
I dont think shes gonna go there, Publicist No.
Her tone has now reached mild panic.
Theres gotta be a journey, she explains, and she senses Ciara has one to talk about.
But, she says, after listening to Ciaras album, she thought,Oh, girl.
You got something to work though.
The women ofRed Table Talkeach have a distinct listening face.
Pinkett Smiths is composed and analytic.
She indicates compassion with a micro-squint.
Gammy sits back, looking lightly curious, her eyes smiling.
Gammy went deep about herabusive first marriageand overcoming her20-year heroin addiction.
Is Ciara going to go there?
The publicists can breathe.
Everyone takes a moment to beam at one another, a circle of perfect teeth and empathy and understanding.
Red Table Talkhas a few competing origin stories.
She decided she wanted to make a multigenerational talk show.
Someone put her in touch with Pinkett Smith, who said yes to the idea.
Red Table Talkis Facebook Watchs biggest success and even earned a Daytime Emmy nomination.
It started as these things often do, with a Kardashian.
A week after the gossip surfaced, news broke that Woods would appear onRed Table Talkin an exclusive.
When Pinkett Smith turned 40, she had what she calls a breakdown.
She didnt know what to do with her career, so she decided shed say yes to everything.
She took a role on the Fox showGotham,the Batman Universe spinoff, playing a villain.
It was the beginning of a huge transition in my life.
I raised my kids, Ive helped Will build everything that hes ever wanted.
I was like, The second half has got to be for me.
There have been several moments since then when it seemed like a Jadaissance was nigh.
Before the age of prestige television, film actresses went to TV when movie roles stopped.
According to Rakieten, the Smith family got offers from networks, but the Facebook deal was the best.
The show can run a highlight reel.
Everybody wants to be the next Oprah, says Rakieten, who should know.
But Pinkett Smith has no designs on that.
Do not call it a talk show!
she says multiple times.
Shed prefer story show, though traditional dictates of the genre classify it as talk.
Her strength as a host, says Rakieten, is her ability to give advice.
and instead ask something less probing (Was Russell in the delivery room?).
Still, though,Red Table Talks frisson comes from the unexpectedness of Pinkett Smith in that role.
People tend to assume she is hard, tough; she always played that kind of character.
In fact, Pinkett Smith cries quite a bit on the show.
Shes composed but tender with her family, her guests, and herself.
The opportunity, perhaps, is to offer some sort of corrective to the rumors about her life.
Like the persistent notion that she and her husband are Scientologists, for example.
In response, Pinkett Smithtweetedthat she was not a Scientologist.
It was good television, even if no one said anything controversial.
The whole house is decorated with touches of African art and beige leather and smells like gardenia.
At 47, her sinewy frame remains practically unchanged from her youth.
(Its a multigenerational physique, too.)
Recently, Pinkett Smith surprised everyone by confessing to her ownporn addiction.
We wanted to destigmatize it, she explains.
(Gammy and Willowyyyeandyeaaaasin unison.)
Then I was like, Willow, what do you know about porn?
And then that was a whole nother thing.
Im still trying to figure out this artistic-porn foolishness Willow was talking about, says Gammy.
Just look up Gaspar Noe, Willow responds.
Those days for me the legs out, back out at the same time, thats over.
And its not that I couldnt do it.
But I wouldnt want to.
That space for you is over, boo.
She continues, more emphatically, Now I got to move to the next.
Thats how I feel like even in my career.
Its like nobody is going to She starts again.
Angela Bassett was homeboys mom inBlack Panther.A queen bee, you know, and she didnt lose her sexy.
She sits back in her chair as the plates get cleared away and looks aside for a moment.
Pinkett Smith is settling into her OG state, she says, rising to lead me out.
As we reach the door, she adds one last beat to the conversation wed had at lunch.
As an older woman, you really have to set out to carve your own lane.
Im carving my own lane, she says, gesturing toward the part of the house where they film.
And feeling like she sufficiently went there, she closes the door.
