Jada Pinkett Smith Opens Up About Will Smith’s Ex, Sheree Fletcher
As the female co-hosts of Red Table Talk shared this week, divorce isn’t easy.
After discussing life after marriage with guest Toni Braxton on Monday, Jada Pinkett Smith and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones invited psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser for a Facebook Live version of the show on Wednesday that focused on rebuilding relationships after separation. In between answering questions from fans, Pinkett Smith specifically opened up about her journey with Sheree Fletcher, Will Smith’s first wife.
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Smith married Fletcher in 1992 and they divorced in 1995 after having a now 26-year-old son named Trey, who Smith recently opened up about rebuilding his relationship with. Smith married Pinkett Smith in 1997, and looking after Trey is what she said ultimately brought the two women together.
“Is the person you’re dating still intertwined in some way…with the person who’s their ex? If so, you need to find a way to get along with them because you wouldn’t be dating that person if it weren’t for the person who they broke up with,” Kaiser told Pinkett Smith, explaining that the health of children is what should take priority in the midst of divorce.
“One of the coping mechanisms with me with Sheree was really, like, ‘Hey, she gifted me.’ She really did. She gifted me. I started to put that into my psychology. She’s not an enemy,” Pinkett Smith noted. “She did me a favor. But then on top of that I had to go into an even deeper psychology of, ‘She’s Trey’s mother,’ as my relationship with Trey deepened.”
Pinkett Smith continued to discuss how her relationship with Trey evolved, and how that evolution forced her to see Sheree differently. “Until that relationship develops and you start to see the importance, and you really have a care for that child, that does become your primary [concern]—I’ve had to go through many different stages of getting to good places,” she said. “It’s a process. It’s very difficult coming into a dynamic like that, and it doesn’t stop.”
Fletcher appeared as a Red Table Talk guest for the season 1 debut episode, and the two women rehashed how difficult it first was to meet in the middle. During that segment, Pinkett Smith admitted that it was Smith who told her to respect Sheree simply as Trey’s mother.
“Will Smith let me have it,” she said. “His take was, ‘That is Trey’s mother, and that’s just not your place.’”
Evidently, putting in the work is worth it.
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