8 Revelations From Jada and Will Smith's Red Table Talk Episode About August Alsina

In case you missed it last week, pop culture enthusiasts everywhere went a little crazy when R&B singer August Alsina went on The Breakfast Club and seemed to confirm longtime rumours of an affair between him and Jada Pinkett Smith.

The uproar then led Jada to announce that she'd be "bringing myself to The Red Table," and address the rumours herself on her hit talk show. A week later, that episode is here, and she and her husband Will sat down to address the multiple elephants in the room.

"I brought myself to the table last week but decided to hold the episode out of respect for the far more important situations that have been happening around us," Jada tweeted. "I’ve been trying to wait for the appropriate moment to drop it but considering the state of the world ... I don’t think that will be happening anytime soon. Here’s to the journey."

All the details you need to know, below:

1. Jada does not deny the affair—and she didn't approve the statement given to Page Six.

Following Alsina's initial viral interview, Page Six reported that "reps" for Jada stated his claims were "absolutely not true." However, on Friday's RTT episode, she clarified. "I felt like it was important to come to the table to really clear the air," she said. "Someone made a statement for me—that wasn't a statement I made—that went cray-cray."

Will added about the rumors: "We specifically never said anything. We purposefully never said anything," he said. "Coming to the table, we just felt like it got to the point where we gotta say something."

2. August Alsina started out as a family friend of the Smiths.

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As Jada previously explained in a 2018 RTT episode in which Alsina was a guest, the singer became a close friend of the Smiths four years ago as they helped him overcome his drug addiction.

"When Aug first came around, he was really sick, and the outpouring from our family was initially about his health," she said. "It all started with him just needing some help...me wanting to help his health, his mental state."

3. Will and Jada separated soon after, but it wasn't because of her relationship with Alsina.

The couple explained that by the time the R&B star entered their lives, their marriage was already on the rocks and they "were going through a very difficult time." (Jada once admitted that Will "felt abandoned" at some point in their relationship.) They ended up separating.

"I was done with your ass," Will said. "Marriages have that. We decided that we were going to go separate for a period of time, and you go figure out how to make yourself happy, and I'll figure out how to make myself happy...I really felt like we could be over."

Jada added, "At that point in time, it was indefinite."

4. Alsina and Jada began dating—or entered an "entanglement"—during the separation.

Jada clarified during RTT that it was after she and Will were separated that she and Alsina entered into an "entanglement" (or a relationship), so it wasn't the result of an affair or terms of an open relationship, as previously speculated.

"It was a relationship," she said. "I was very broken. In the process of that relationship, I definitely realized you can't find happiness outside of yourself. And luckily enough, you and I were also going through a process of healing in a much different manner. "

Will then asked her what she was looking for when she was with August.

"I just wanted to feel good," she answered. "It had been a long time since I'd felt good. And it was really a joy to just help somebody. I think that has a lot to do with my co-dependency. Which is another thing that I had to learn to break in the cycle? Just the idea of needing to fix and being drawn to people that need help."

5. Will did not give Alsina permission to be with Jada.

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Debunking another claim that Alsina made in his Breakfast Club interview, the RTT host made it clear that this was completely false.

"The only person that can give permission in that particular circumstance is myself," Jada said. "I could actually see how he could perceive it as permission because we were separated amicably. And I think he also wanted to make it clear that he's not a homewrecker, which he's not."

6. Jada does not regret her relationship—or "entanglement"—with Alsina.

"I actually don't look at it as a transgression at all," she said. "Through that particular journey, I learned so much about myself and was able to really confront a lot of emotional immaturities, emotional insecurity, and I was really able to do some really deep healing."

7. She and Alsina haven't spoken in "so long."

Both Will and Jada explained that they're able to be open and relaxed about the subject now, because according to them, it's all in the past. They both seemed to question Alsina's reasoning for opening up so publicly.

"Our experiences of working through it, fighting through it, talking through it, and therapizing through it, I think the 'Why now?' is weird," Will said.

Jada also explained she felt, up until the Breakfast Club, interview, it wasn't something she was ready to discuss publicly.

"Aug and I haven't talked in so long. This all seemed very strange," she said.

8. Jada and Will have moved on and have found "unconditional love."

Somehow, the Smiths have made an incredibly complicated, dramatic situation seem simple. They've since moved on, and found a way to learn from their separation and Jada's relationship with Alsina. Will even confessed that at one point, he wasn't sure he'd ever spoken to Jada again, calling their reconciliation "a miracle."

"We came together young, and we were both broken in our own ways, and to be able to make mistakes without the fear of losing your family is so critical," he said.

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Jada's take? "I'm grateful for the journey that you and I have had together. Because they're a lot of couples that go through those periods and a lot of couples that have to separate," she said. "One thing I'll say about you and I is that there have never been secrets...We have really gotten to that place of unconditional love."

Source: www.oprahmag.com/