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Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have an unconventional parenting style that is often criticized in the media. They are famous for letting their children, Jaden and Willow Smith, do whatever they want. Critics shamed Jada for allowing Willow to shave her head at a young age and letting Jaden model skirts for Louis Vuitton. 

However, whatever the Smith parents are doing, it is apparent that it is keeping their children very close to them. They are a tight-knit family, so it comes as a surprise that Jada held such pain from her father, Robosol Pinkett, Jr. She and the late actor had a “horrendous” fight before he died, Jada recalled.

Trey Smith, Willow Smith, Jaden Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Will Smith
Trey Smith, Willow Smith, Jaden Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Will Smith | Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Environmental Media Association

Jada Pinkett Smith’s father struggled with drugs and alcohol

Jada’s mother, Adrienne “Gammy” Norris-Banfield, and her father, Robsol Pinkett Jr., had her when they were teenagers in high school. They married young and only stayed together briefly. Jada was a baby when they divorced. 

Her father also had another child, Caleeb Pinkett, but left his mother when he was two years old. Robsol went on to adopt a child later on in life at a point where he was sober. The Matrix star invited her half-brother, Caleeb, to her talk show, Red Table Talk, to discuss how hard it is for both of them to forgive their father.  

“He told me, ‘I’d rather get high than be your father,'” Caleeb recalls of Robsol, who died in 2010.

Jada Pinkett Smith and her brother Caleeb Pinkett
Jada Pinkett Smith and her brother Caleeb Pinkett | David Livingston/Getty Images

Jada remembers how much Robsol struggled with drugs and alcohol their entire life. She recalls that he “fell off the wagon” many times throughout her life. 

“He told me at 7,” Jada adds. “‘I can’t be your father. I’m a criminal. I’m an addict, and that’s just what it is.'”

Both Jada and Caleeb held a lot of resentment toward their father. Before he died, the siblings attempted to help him out after one relapse but struggled to forgive him. 

Jada regrets the ‘horrendous fight’ she had with her father before he died

At one point in Robsol’s life, Caleeb told his sister that they had to bring their father out to California because he had relapsed again. Jada had trouble with this realization but did it anyway because she knew he needed help. 

“We had that feeling that we had to be responsible for him, but he didn’t need to be responsible for us,” Jada remembers.

Trey Smith, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Jaden Smith
Trey Smith, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Jaden Smith | Kevin Winter/Getty Images
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She also hates that he wanted to form a relationship with her when she “got into the position” that she is with her fame and fortune in Hollywood. However, after they helped Robsol get sober again, it wasn’t long before he relapsed. The last time it was an overdose, and he died.

“The most difficult part of him dying like that is because he and I had had a horrendous fight when I found out that he relapsed,” Jada regrets. “I was like, ‘I don’t owe you nothin.’ You didn’t do shit for me. You didn’t do shit for Caleeb. I don’t owe you nothin.’ It was one of those.”

Her brother had the same conversation with their father; however, Robsol said, “That’s what the disease is. That’s who I am.”

Caleeb and Jada realized that the addiction was not about them. They had to forgive themselves first to forgive their father. 

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