Meta will no longer pull up a seat at the red table. Jada Pinkett Smith and her daughter Willow Smith’s Red Table Talk has been canceled.
The Set It Off actress, 51, and Willow, 22, have helmed their Facebook Watch talk show for five seasons alongside Pinkett Smith’s mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris. Variety confirmed on Thursday, April 27, that the social media network has shuttered all of its original TV content, including Red Table Talk.
Pinkett Smith and Willow — whom the actress shares with husband Will Smith — launched their chat show in May 2018 on Facebook Watch, where they’ve candidly opened up about their home lives and health struggles.
“I guess at this point in my life, I’ve really been doing a lot of interior work,” Pinkett Smith, who is also the mother of son Jaden Smith, told NPR in January 2019 about deciding to launch the show. “And I just realized that in part of my growth, the women and the people who had the courage to be very transparent with me with certain aspects of their journey really, really helped my journey tremendously. … And so I was like, ‘I really want to create conversation where people don’t have to feel like they’re alone.’ And whatever pieces individuals can take with them to make whatever changes they might feel is necessary for more happiness, more joy, more peace — I want to be part of that journey.”
As the generational trio gathered around a red table in the Smiths’ Los Angeles home, they also welcomed various celebrity guests on each episode. Hayden Panettiere, Jordyn Woods, Will, 54, and even the King Richard star’s ex-wife, Sheree Zampino, have been among the guests invited to the table to discuss their own experiences.
Red Table Talk premiered its fifth season in June 2022, in which the Girls Trip star publicly addressed the fallout from her husband’s Oscars slap for the first time. (The Academy Award winner smacked Chris Rock during the March 2022 broadcast over his joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, resulting in the organization banning Will from its events for 10 years.)
“Now about Oscar night, my deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have an opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile,” Pinkett Smith said during the June 1, 2022, episode. “The state of the world today, we need them both. And we all actually need one another more than ever. … Until then, Will and I are continuing to do what we have done for the last 28 years, and that’s keep figuring out this thing called life together. Thank you for listening.”
