Following T.I’s interview where he revealed that he checks his daughter’s hymen, Jada Smith and Willow Smith hosted Rapper T.I and his wife Tiny Harris, on the Red Table Talk Show which airs every Monday on Facebook Watch.
T.I who is apologetic about his statement and the misguided information, elicited the sympathy of Jada smith as she reveals that she and willow have to educate will smith on sensitive issues too.
The Red Table Talk Show
“There’s certain things about raising a man that I can’t know,” Jada said. “I would tell [Will], ‘Love your daughter, let me teach her,’ because there’s certain sensitivities that you might not understand and have just because of your relationship in the world is different than a woman’s relationship—I understood that because I’m in this house with Will and he be saying the craziest stuff. He don’t understand the level,” she said. “And thank God he has me and he’s got Willow … we educate that joker before he leaves this house. You know what I mean? He’s one of those that likes to tell stories and sometimes goes too far.”
Jada said she could see where T.I.’s misinformed views stemmed from, since she and 19-year-old daughter Willow Smithsometimes even have to correct Will when he says something out of a place of ignorance.
“Willow has gone at her dad several times for very insensitive comments, whether it’s around menstruation or, you know, ‘You must be PMS-ing,’ and she’s like, ‘That right there, we not gon’ do that.’”
“There’s certain things about raising a man that I can’t know,” Jada said. “I would tell [Will], ‘Love your daughter, let me teach her,’ because there’s certain sensitivities that you might not understand and have just because of your relationship in the world is different than a woman’s relationship.”
T.I. also exposed his own misconceptions.“I want to learn from you,” he said to Tiny, Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris, Smith’s mother, who often appears on the show. “I have three powerful, independent, brilliant women, and I want to know: What is the purpose and place of a father in this society? Because a father like myself, who just wants to be as involved and attentive as possible, we could draw the conclusion of, we just donate sperm and come pay for things and we don’t get to have no say in how things are handled.”
“I don’t think anybody has a problem with you protecting your daughter,” Smith responded. “That’s not the issue. It’s the hymen part.”
T.I. defended himself by saying he had made the comments in a “very joking manner,” and that he had spoken from a “place of truth” but then “began to embellish and exaggerate, and I think a lot of people kind of took it extremely literal.” He added that the gynecologist appointments had taken place when Deyjah was 15 and 16, and that her mother, singer Ms. Niko, was present at both.
After Smith asked if he understood the sensitivity of the situation and why so many people were quick to criticize his actions, T.I. responded that he didn’t at the time but now does. He then apologized on air to Deyjah — but not to “any of these weirdos who just tossed around lies for fun” — before asserting that he had just been acting out of concern as a “protective” father.
Rapper T.I
“In order to guide or direct, you must have a certain level of control,” he said. “In the age or the time when our women, black women, are the most unprotected … disregarded women on the planet, I’m being criticized because I’m willing to go above and beyond to protect mine. And I’m talking about all of the little slimy, grimy, chubby-fingered little boys who just want to come and defile and destroy the sanctity that I have —”
Jada Pinkett Smith, concluded the conversation which centered on the misguided information about women bodies of which even her husband Will Smith is sometimes guilty of, and the complexities of raising male and female children, and says, parenting is a work in progress every day.