The actor opened up about life-long eating issues within his family.
Will Smith is fully leaning into the Red Table Talk lifestyle, despite the recent sneak peek clip of the new episode of the Smith family’s Facebook talk show, which showed Will getting seemingly upset by his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, questioning his alcohol intake. In the episode, though, we learn that it was actually the Aladdin star who called his family together for an “emergency” Red Table Talk.
In the episode, Will’s 26-year-old son, Trey Smith, makes his first appearance at the table and Will opens up to his three children, wife, Jada, and mother-in-law, Adrienne, about his complicated relationship with food.
Will first talks about a recent weight gain during a family vacation, where their private chef would make them hot and fresh muffins each day.
“So for breakfast, I was having the four or five muffins. You know, Aladdin was successful, so I was like, ‘Muffin, muffin, muffin!’” Will says. “Then for lunch, I would have a Moscow mule, I’d have a little vodka. That was pretty much my routine for the 10 days. I’d wake up, eat five muffins and go back to sleep.”
His weight gain prompted the nickname “Pudge Muffin” from Jada and his daughter, Willow.
“I had gotten up to 225 pounds and it was the most I’d ever weighed in my adult life,” the 50-year-old actor says. “I got to 223 on Ali and I got to 225 on the muffin boat.”
Jada and Willow quickly assure Will that they meant nothing by the nickname.
“Yeah, Pudge Muffin was cute,” he admits of the name. “But I don’t want to be a Pudge Muffin to my family.”
“You can’t put the fate of a family on a Pudge Muffin,” Jaden quips.
Hitting the new weight high prompted Will to go back to being his “disciplined” self after vacation.
“So I’m going to fast for 10 days. I did it and I got to about four days and I’m [mimes passing out] because I was still taking my blood pressure medicine,” he recalls. “So I started taking my blood pressure medicine and my blood pressure was almost way dangerously low.”
After going off of the medicine and seeing his blood pressure even out, Will began to wonder if he actually needed the medication or if his eating habits were causing his high blood pressure.
“I couldn’t believe I got to 50 years old without knowing you literally are what you eat,” he says. “I eat food like an addict. I love food, but I realized my relationship with food was I eat for fun. I eat for joy.”
Each of the family members then opens up about their relationship with food. Jada reveals that she and Will “had a bit of an intervention” with Jaden because as a vegetarian he wasn’t getting enough protein.
“We realized he was wasting away. He just looked drained, he was depleted,” she says.
Jaden agrees with his parents, adding, “I was just eating two meals a day and maybe just that one big meal.”
The admissions prompts Will to invite a professional guest onto Red Table Talk.
“I feel that first and foremost that food is medicine and that people can lead happier lives if we understand what we’re putting into our bodies,” Will says, before introducing nutritionist Mona Sharma, who asks the family a series of questions that end up being slightly contentious. When she asks if they take drugs, they all laugh before Willow says, “Everyone knows we’re 4-20 friendly.”
And when the topic of alcohol comes up, Will gets jokingly touchy.
“That’s my personal business, Jada. I respect that it’s your show, but at the end of the day, this is a house that we share,” he says, still smiling. “On vacation time it’s a lot. This is in front of my kids, it’s like, I’m a bad parent,” noting he has “one or two a week,” in normal circumstances.
Jaden then adds, “I just turned 21.”
“So you’re thinking of stopping now? Now that it’s legal, it’s not fun anymore?” Will teases his son.
For more from Red Table Talk, watch the clip below:
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