Jada Pinkett Smith Recalls Mom Warning Not to Get on Stranger's Boat in Italy: 'Saved My Life Again'

Benjamin VanHoose
·2 min read

Jada Pinkett Smith is revealing some potentially life-saving advice mom Adrienne Banfield-Norris once gave her.

This week's episode of Facebook Watch's Red Table Talk deals with mother-daughter relationships, as guest Kelly McDaniel, author of Mother Hunger, joins Jada, her daughter Willow Smith and Banfield-Norris (aka Gammy) for an emotional discussion.

In a clip shared exclusively with PEOPLE, Jada, 50, recalls being in Italy by herself when she was 20 years old and how she called her mother to ask whether she should accept an invite onto a stranger's boat. When the story was brought up, Gammy smiled and nodded her head, agreeing that she remembered the incident.

"Remember when the valet said to me, 'I have a boat, I want to take you out to dinner'? I'm thinking, 'Oh, I'm in Italy! I'm 20, you know what I'm saying?" says Jada with a laugh. "So I called my mother. I said, 'Mom, the valet wants to take me on this boat.' She said, 'Well, first of all, if he has a boat, what's he doing parking cars? And second of all, you are not getting on no boat with nobody.' "

She continued of her mom's advice, " 'If something happens to you, nobody's gonna hear you. You're gonna be in the middle of nowhere. Do not — Jada!' And I said, 'Oh, snap, Mom. You right.' "

"And let me tell you," Jada added, "'cause I was about to get on that boat. For all I know I could've been trafficked. Straight up. Because they knew I was alone. I think to that day like, 'She saved my life again.' "

RELATED: Jada Pinkett Smith Tears Up on RTT Discussing 'Terrified Little Girl Underneath' Her 'Strong' Exterior

Red Table Talk
Red Table Talk

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Also in this episode, which is titled "How Destructive Mothers Damage Their Daughters: Could This Be You?", Jada remembers her childhood, saying, "I had to, like, deal with a lot of stressful adult things at a young age. I didn't have the ability to deal with the emotions that were coming with it. I just had to buck up."

"So those women you see that you think are so strong, there's this terrified little girl underneath. And that's me," the star added, holding back tears and nodding her head as Willow, 21, said to her, "Oh, Mommy."

Willow added, "This is why we do the work."

New episodes of the Emmy-winning Red Table Talk premiere Wednesdays (12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET) on Facebook Watch.

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