Bonding over a scary moment. Sandra Bullock connected with Willow Smith during an appearance on Red Table Talk after they both revealed they’ve had someone break into their homes.
“My house was broken into while I was in it,” the Practical Magice actress, 57, told Smith, 21, during the Wednesday, December 1, episode of the Facebook Watch series while sitting with the singer’s mom, Jada Pinkett Smith, and grandmother Adrienne Banfield-Norris.
The Oscar winner recalled the terrifying ordeal, saying, “It’s a different story, especially when you’ve been watching the last 24 hours of Dateline. I was literally in the closet going, ‘This doesn’t end well.’”
The “Time Machine” singer, for her part, remembered having her home broken into while she was away for the holidays, noting it was still “a lot to handle” even though she wasn’t physically there when it happened.
“I had just gotten that house. My first house,” Smith said. “I had a whole moment. It was rough.”
Bullock agreed with Smith before telling her, “You were invaded in the worst way,” when that scare took place.
The “Grow” musician explained that she had to give herself a pep talk to overcome the fear that flooded through her after the incident.
“After I peeled myself off the floor, I took a deep breath, I said, you know what, I said a prayer,” Smith remembered. “I said, ‘We’re going to be OK. We’re going to figure it out regardless.’”
Us Weekly confirmed in June 2014 that the Two Weeks Notice star’s Los Angeles home was broken into at 6:30 a.m. At the time, a suspect was brought into custody by the Los Angeles Police Department but wasn’t charged or booked.
The following year, Bullock’s 911 call from that day was played during a preliminary hearing by prosecutors. “I’m locked in my closet,” she said in the phone call. “I have a safe door in my bedroom, and I’ve locked it, and I’m locked in the closet right now.”
It was later revealed that the man arrested in the case was not armed when he entered Bullock’s estate, but he did have a notebook filled with messages and magazine cutouts of the actress, according to LAPD officer Jose Bermudez’s testimony.
The assailant, Joshua James Corbett, pleaded no contest in May 2017 to one felony count each of stalking and first-degree residential burglary. He was sentenced to five years of probation and a 10-year protective order was issued against him. He was also ordered to seek continued treatment at a mental health facility. One year later, he took his own life.
In December 2020, a man broke into Smith’s home, which she said during an October episode of Red Table Talk left her feeling “violated.” She filed a restraining order against the intruder, which was granted in March.
