Jada Pinkett Smith passed out on 'The Nutty Professor' set from 'a bad batch of ecstasy'
The latest episode of Red Table Talk found our favorite generational trio—Jada Pinkett Smith, her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and her daughter, Willow Smith—dissecting the dangerous glamorization of alcohol, which has led to women drinking as much as men on average "for the first time in history."
Jada offered her past abuse of alcohol, ecstasy and weed as a cautionary tale.
"On Nutty Professor, I passed out," the 49-year-old admitted. "I went to work high, and it was a bad batch of ecstasy, and I passed out. And I told everybody that I must have had old medication in a vitamin bottle."
Pinkett Smith starred as Carla Purty opposite Eddie Murphy in the Oscar-winning 1996 comedy.
When Willow joked that she's "just so happy that I'm a regular old stoner" rather than experimenting with "intense" substances like Pinkett Smith did around her age, her mother didn't totally give her a pass.
"I stay on you, Jaden and Trey," Pinkett Smith told Willow. "Because I grew up with my mother, who was a heroin addict, and still, it didn't sink into me that any mind-altering substance—I don't care what it is. All y'all young people talking about, 'Weed is from the earth.' I'm like, it's a gate."
The 20-year-old multi-talented artist emphasized that she has realized that "it's imperative" for her to take at least a two-month break from weed every year. She added that she "would always want" Jada, Gammy or anyone in her inner circle to tell her if they noticed "a downward spiral" developing.
That was another opening for Pinkett Smith to impart well-earned wisdom: "That's why you have to trust the eyes around you because you won't know. And that was the thing with me. Don't think that people didn't try to tap me on my shoulder. Don't think that when I was at Debbie Allen's throwing up all over her house... "
"I had to reach my rock bottoms," she continued. "I was out of control. I think back on my life, I'm like, I am a walking miracle. No doubt about it. People would not believe."
Allen was the director on A Different World, the iconic television series Pinkett Smith starred in for 46 episodes from 1991-93.
Pinkett Smith explained that her "hard" drinking dates back to her time attending high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts, but things quickly escalated once she moved to Los Angeles. She developed an affinity for the specific cocktail of alcohol, ecstasy and weed because her threshold kept rising.
The Nutty Professor "incident" was "eye-opening" and the lone time Pinkett Smith's "weekend party girl" lifestyle interfered with her work. She shared that she quit wine cold turkey a while ago, she cannot touch rum, vodka or any "dark liquor."
Elsewhere, the women welcomed in Dr. Jessica Mellinger, a liver disease specialist, as well as three highly successful women who struggle with alcoholism.
Watch the full 40-minute installment here.
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