Jada Pinkett Smith details past substance abuse: 'I went to work high'
Jada Pinkett Smith is opening up her previous struggles with drugs and alcohol — including being high while working on a comedy classic film.
During Wednesday's episode of "Red Table Talk," the 49-year-old co-host, who's been candid about her lifelong struggles with substance abuse, revealed her own personal "eye-opening incident" that occurred while filming the 1996 comedy "The Nutty Professor," which starred Eddie Murphy.
"So I wasn't the type of person that was drinking every day. You know, I was, like, a weekend party girl," the actress said, explaining that she would party from Thursday to Monday mornings.
Smith said that she began drinking "hard" in high school and eventually moved on to a cocktail of ecstasy, alcohol and weed. The actress' mother and co-host, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, who also battled substance abuse, then asked if her partying schedule ever "interfered with your being able to go to work."
"I had one incident," Smith confessed. "That was an eye-opening incident for me as well. I had one incident on 'Nutty Professor.' I passed out. Makeup trailer," she admitted. "I went to work high, and it was a bad batch of ecstasy."
"I told everybody that I had taken — I must've had old medication in a vitamin bottle. That's what I said. But I tell you what I did though. Got my a-- together and got on that set," Smith added. "That was the last time."
Noting that now she tells her own children to steer clear of "any mind-altering substance," she added that she feels lucky to be where she is.
"I think back on my life, I'm like, 'I'm a walking miracle,'" she said.
