The multi-award-winning series Red Table Talk, hosted by three generations, comprised of Jada Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willow Smith, and her mother Adrienne Banfield Norris, aka “Gammy,” returned for its fifth season on Wednesday on Facebook Watch.
Red Table Talk’s first episode featured trailblazing Grammy-nominated singer and fashion icon Janelle Monáe, bearing all in a candid conversation about abandonment issues, the trauma following her father’s drug addiction, and why she has come out as nonbinary later in life.
The LGBTQIA+ superhero revealed why she no longer sees herself as a woman, coming out at age 32.
“I’m nonbinary, so I just don’t see myself as a woman solely. I feel all of my energy,” Monáe said. “I feel like God is so much bigger than the “he” or the “she.” And if I am from God, I am everything. I am everything. But I will always, always stand with women. I will always stand with Black women. But I just see everything that I am. Beyond the binary,” Monáe explained.
The singer attributed her uneasiness to her parents’ estrangement explaining that she wasn’t sure if she’d be loved by audiences.
“Thinking back to when I first started, I was like, man, as free as I was on stage, when I came off stage, I was still that scared little girl. Like I’m not good enough,” Monáe said.
“I’m not good enough; that was always in the back of my mind, she continued. “Will they love me? My parents were not together, and I always thought it was me, the reason why, why I wasn’t being taken care of by my da. He had gotten on crack cocaine, and that changed his life. It changed our relationship.
Monáe also discussed her personal issues and her father’s troubled history with drug abuse clarifying that they had since built a better relationship.
“Now, he’s clean. Completely sober, he’s doing incredible; he’s like my best friend.” Monáe added. “But this was when he was sick. I was dealing with real rejection and abandonment issues. What if people leaving me was a direct correlation to my dad? And always feeling like, if I wasn’t perfect, would they leave me. I don’t want to feel the pain of anybody leaving me.”
Adding more members to the group chat–Monáe’s mother, Janet Hawthorne, shook up the table with excitement when she expressed how happy she was to be a part of the episode.
“I’m just happy someone invited me,” Hawthorne teased. “I said, ‘The Red Table? Are you kidding me?'”
Upcoming episodes this season will feature exclusive sit-downs with the parents of Miss USA Cheslie Kryst, who tragically died by suicide earlier this year; Ireland Baldwin and her mom, Oscar-winning actress Kim Basinger’s first interview together.
The Red Table Talk ladies will also be the first to sit down with the “Tinder Swindler” victim, Ayleen Charlotte, as she dives into her financial and mental hardships after being scammed out of hundreds and thousands of dollars by her ex-boyfriend.
Rachel DeLoache Williams, the best-selling author of “My Friend Anna,” will stop by to discuss being conned by fake German heiress Anna Delvey and real estate mogul and business expert Barbara Corcoran. She shares her frightening experience of being a scam target that could happen to anyone.
And the show wouldn’t be the same if the family didn’t drop in either—Willow, Jaden, and Trey— will host their first solo episode together as a group on the show.
