Jada Pinkett doesn’t look the way she handled Trey and Will Smith’s ex Sheree Zampino at the time of their divorce.

Fans have always doubted Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s unconventional marriage. There’s the Matrix actress’ relationship with Tupac, as well as the couple’s controversial parenting style. In a 2018 episode of Red Table Talk, Pinkett Smith talked to her husband’s ex-wife, Sheree Zampino about co-parenting. the latter’s son with Smith, Trey Smith. The host admitted that she has some regrets about it… Here’s why.

Inside Sheree Zampino & Jada Pinkett Smith’s Relationship

Zampino and Pinkett Smith had a tough relationship at the beginning of their blended family situation. The former revealed that they had a heated phone conversation where they exchanged “fighting words.” She called to talk to her son but she had to speak to the Girls Trip star first. “Very few times in my life, I can recall being checked real hard where I didn’t have nothing to say,” Zampino recalled. “You did that, but you weren’t out of line. You picked up the phone, and I wasn’t very respectful.”

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star also said that Pinkett Smith got so territorial at one point. “You basically let me know, ‘I don’t really appreciate your tone.’ I was like, ‘I don’t care.’ You hung up on me,” Zampino recounted. “I called back, and I happened to say, ‘B—h, you living in a house that I picked out.’ You said, ‘It’s my house now.'” She added that she didn’t know how to respond to that. Pinkett Smith said that the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor wasn’t happy about the exchange and that “he let me have it.”

In September 2021, Pinkett Smith opened about her relationship with Zampino during her 50th birthday special on Red Table Talk. They now share a “beautiful sisterhood,” she said. “You guys have been so loving and supportive and you guys just see me. You and Trey and Jaden, all three of you see me. You really do through the toughest times. I would say being a mother wasn’t easy, but it was worth it,” the host told her daughter and co-host Willow Smith. “I would say another challenge was smoothing out my thoughts around, you know, the relationship with Sheree and I. That was a real process. When I think about our relationship now, there’s a real sisterhood there, but it took 20 some years.”

Inside Jada Pinkett Smith & Will Smith’s Controversial Parenting Style

The Smiths’ parenting style — which they claim to be “respectful” — isn’t really popular with their fans. “We respect our children the way we would respect any other person,” the King Richard actor once said. “Things like cleaning up their room. You would never tell a full-grown adult to clean their room, so we don’t tell our kids to clean their rooms.” They also “don’t do punishment” because they believe it only makes things worse. “Our concept is, as young as possible, give them as much control over their lives as possible and the concept of punishment,” Smith explained. “Our experience has been — it has a little too much of a negative quality.”

At 15 years old, the actor’s son, Jaden Smith asked to be emancipated from him. “We never discussed it, but I know he felt betrayed. He felt misled, and he lost his trust in my leadership,” the Men in Black star said of involving his son in the highly criticized film, After Earth. “At fifteen years old, when Jaden asked about being an emancipated minor, my heart shattered. He ultimately decided against it, but it sucks to feel like you’ve hurt your kids.”

He also admitted to forcing Willow to continue a tour she didn’t want to finish in 2010. But after the Whip My Hair hitmaker shaved her hair, Smith “felt something slowly turning, shifting, until it clicked into place: In a moment of divine connection and revelation, she had reached me. I leaned down, peered deeply into her eyes, and said, ‘I got it. I am so sorry. I see you.'”

Why Jada Pinkett Smith Regrets The Way She Co-Parented Trey Smith

During her Red Table chat with Zampino, Pinkett Smith said that she regrets getting involved with Smith during his “unwinding” marriage with Zampino. “The beginning between us was rough, and here’s one thing I will say in hindsight,” said The Nutty Professor star. “Because I did not understand marriage, I didn’t understand divorce. I will say that I probably should have fell back.” She admitted that she was “insensitive” back then.

“See, that’s where I was wrong,” the host explained. “Now being a married woman and if Will and I would get divorced now. Oh, my God. So when I think back about where I was, some of my insensitivities, some of my inconsiderations, just in regards to you guys unwinding a marriage, and me trying to get in there.” She thinks she should have backed off and let the former couple parent Trey instead of making things more complicated. “With Sheree and with Trey, that was a really difficult time,” Smith previously said. “Divorce was the worst thing in my adult life; divorce was the ultimate failure for me.”