Jada Pinkett Smith fought back tears as she discussed the domestic abuse her mother suffered at the hands of her father.
US actress Pinkett Smith, the wife of Hollywood star Will Smith, sat down with her mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones and her daughter, 18-year-old Willow Smith, for the latest episode of her Facebook series, titled Domestic Abuse: When Love Turns Violet.
At the beginning of the episode, Pinkett Smith, 47, revealed she was aware her parents had a “very violent relationship” and that as a child she had noticed scars on her mother’s body.
One, on Banfield-Jones’s back, was caused by her late husband Robsol Pinkett Jr throwing her over the banister, she said.
He also left her with a black eye after lashing out in a drunken rage, her mother recalled.
Banfield-Jones told how her own mother warned her away from her future husband when she first met him, saying, “You need to stay away from this guy, because I can see in his eyes something is wrong with him. Something is wrong at home”.
Banfield-Jones then recalled the incident which caused her to leave her husband, who died in 2010.
She said: “What happened was he was angry about something. He came home angry. You and I were at mommy and daddy’s house, and he came over there and he (was) pissed off about something, I don’t even remember what the argument was about, but he started hitting me and he was in a rage.
“I was backing out of daddy’s den into the master bedroom and you were still in the den.
“And I said, ‘Oh my God, We left Jada’. And I knew that he wasn’t going to hurt you. He left the room to go get you, and I went through the bedroom out the master bath and down the steps and ran across the street to the neighbour.
“Ran across the street to the neighbour for them to call and get me some help.”
As the three women fought back tears, Banfield-Jones said she realised the relationship was over when the police arrived.