All About Jada Pinkett Smith’s Mom, Adrienne Banfield-Norris

Adrienne Banfield-Norris, better known as “Gammy,” had never been in front of a camera before her hit talk show Talk about the red table with his daughter Jada Pinkett Smith and his granddaughter Willow Smith.

Before her Emmy-winning talk show, the Baltimore native worked as a nurse for decades — even while addicted to heroin, as she noted on the podcast dr. Jackie’s Point V In 2021, Banfield-Norris spoke openly about her recovery from addiction on the show, and she and her husband Rodney Norris bonded over similar journeys to clean living. In December 2022, she celebrated 32 years of clean living.

Banfield-Norris and her daughter haven’t always had the easiest relationship, due in part to her past drug use. “I had parents who were drug addicts,” Pinkett Smith told PEOPLE for its October 2023 cover story. [a healthy] The foundation, as I would find out in my adulthood, had some really powerful effects on how I saw myself.”

Despite their early struggles, she and Banfield-Norris have developed a close bond today. Pinkett Smith posted a lovely tribute to her mother on Instagram on Mother’s Day 2021. “Thank you Great Divine for my mother Adrienne,” she wrote. “You have blessed me with a PERFECT Mother. She provided me with… EVERYTHING you intended.”

So who is the popular co-host Talk about the red table? Here’s everything you need to know about Jade Pinkett Smith’s mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris.

She’s from Baltimore

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Banfield-Norris was born and raised in Baltimore to a doctor father and a social worker mother. In March 2020, she said The New York Times, “We were the epitome of the black middle class.” When she was young, she attended the Baltimore Ethical Society, a non-denominational congregation.

The talk show host and her husband currently live between Baltimore and Los Angeles, and Banfield-Norris shares her love for her hometown on social media. On April 3, 2023, she shared a video of herself eating Maryland crab and stated, “When you’re in Baltimore, do what Baltimoreans do, baby. Eat crabs!” She also jokingly told her followers in an Instagram post in December 2022: “I wanna go to these B-higher streets. Prepare!”

She got pregnant with Pinkett Smith while in high school

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Banfield-Norris became pregnant with her daughter when she was a senior in high school. She explained further dr. Jackie’s Point of V that in her “wealthy” family it was unacceptable to have a child out of wedlock. “It was an embarrassment to the family,” Banfield-Norris said. “So I got married very young. I got married when I was still in high school.”

Pinkett Smith’s father, Robsol Pinkett Jr., died of an overdose in 2010. According to Banfield-Norris, she was married to him “for about a year if that’s how long it took.” During the 2018 episode Talk about the red table, she and Pinkett Smith discussed Robsol’s life with addiction and the domestic abuse Banfield-Norris endured. “I knew that my mother and my father had a very abusive relationship early on,” Pinkett Smith said. “He has several scars on his body.”

Banfield-Norris said her ex-husband was “usually in an altered state” when he abused her, but she noted that did not excuse the behavior.

He talks openly about his journey to sobriety

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Banfield-Norris celebrated 32 years of sobriety on December 22, 2022. “Today I celebrate 32 years of freedom from all mind and mood altering chemicals,” she wrote on Instagram. “Clean, not always serene, but forever grateful! God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Banfield-Norris opened up about her addiction during a July 2018 episode of the series Talk about the red table. The host and podcaster said that she used heroin for more than 20 years, and it was not easy for her to talk about it. She explained that she initially stopped using heroin because of a man. “At the time, I didn’t think I was anything without a man,” Banfield-Norris recalled. “It’s sad to say that I did it for a man.”

In the end, she decided to stay clean for herself. “I had to understand that there is power,” she said. “That God was watching over us, you and me, through all that. And I just had to let go and surrender so that I could receive what he was trying to give me, through other people.” The former nurse added that the stigma surrounding addiction makes it difficult for people to recover and she would like to change that.

While speaking with PEOPLE in 2019, Banfield-Norris shared how she managed to hide her habit from her daughter until high school. “I would be nodding off at the table, and it didn’t take long for her to realize, ‘She’s not tired, she’s high,'” Pinkett Smith recalled.

“People have the idea that addicts are poor, that they don’t come from anything and that they are somehow worthless people, but I came from an upper-middle-class family and we were extremely respected in the community,” she continued. “Addiction attacks all races, all creeds, regardless of your religion, regardless of your background, financial circumstances or profession.”

She was the head nurse

Instagram by Adrienne Banfield Norris

Banfield-Norris graduated at the top of her nursing class from Coppin State University and worked for decades as the chief nurse of a clinic in Baltimore, according to Baltimore Sun. The host said Rolling stone that she stopped breastfeeding after that Talk about the red table became a full-time job.

She spoke about the importance of careers and financial independence for women dr. Jackie’s Point of V. “I was a nurse and I managed to create a career for myself,” she said. “And I knew that I would be fine if I got a divorce. I didn’t need anyone to take care of me.”

Pinkett Smith told the magazine in 2013 Minority Nurse Practitioner that her mother’s nursing skills amazed her. “She’s been there with me a few times when we’ve had some medical emergencies in the house [my] children and [it amazes me] how he automatically goes into this analytical mode of focus,” said the actress. “She’s just a great problem solver.”

She gives important advice to her daughter

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Over the years, Banfield-Norris has offered her daughter life- and career-saving advice. When Pinkett Smith was 20 years old, she traveled to Italy and almost accepted a stranger’s invitation to go on his boat. Fortunately, she called her mother first to check on that decision.

“Remember when the valet said to me, ‘I have a boat, I want to take you to dinner?’ Pinkett Smith asked Banfield-Norris further Talk about the red table. “I think, ‘Oh, I’m in Italy! I’m 20 years old, you know what I’m saying?”

At the time, Banfield-Norris told her daughter, “You’re not going on the boat with anybody,” adding, “If something happens to you, nobody’s going to hear you. You’re going to be in the middle of nowhere. Don’t — Jada!”

Banfield-Norris also stepped in to help with business situations. When Pinkett Smith starred in a medical drama HawthorneBanfield-Norris objected to the way medical practices were portrayed on the show – and the medical advisory team changed as a result.

“There were some minor things in terms of medical care and grooming techniques that were inappropriate,” Banfield-Norris told AFRO in 2010. “I would [Jada] my suggestions and actually what she did at the end of the season was kind of revamp her medical advisory team.”

She is married to Rodney Norris

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Banfield-Norris married her husband Rodney Norris in 2016. He is her fourth husband and the president and CEO of Positive Pathways, a nonprofit organization serving adults with developmental disabilities. The couple opened up about their relationship during an August 2022 episode of the Oprah Winfrey Network docuseries. Black love.

The Talk about the red table host recalled being “head over heels” when she reconnected with her husband decades after they first dated. “I don’t know if I necessarily needed marriage,” she thought. “I just wanted to be with him, I just wanted to see where it could go. I was just crazy about him. I’m crazy about him.”

Norris said their experiences with addiction and sobriety brought them together. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a relationship on that level,” he said. “We would talk about anything and everything, and I think it’s because we were both in recovery and doing a lot by ourselves.”

Banfield-Norris added: “For Rodney and I, [we] we were stronger because of the struggles we went through.”

She is the co-host Talk about the red table with his daughter and granddaughter

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Banfield-Norris hosts a popular talk show Talk about the red table in addition to his daughter and granddaughter. The series premiered in 2018 on Facebook Watch, and since then the women have covered everything from porn addiction to Pinkett Smith’s relationship with Will Smith to the Varsity Blues scandal. “To be able to sit [as] three black women and seeing the different perspectives is really interesting, because I know a lot of people just like to put black women in one big old pot,” said Pinkett Smith Rolling stone 2021. “That myth must be dispelled.”

This multi-generational trio has chatted with various A-listers over the years, including Snoop Dogg, Tiffany Haddish, Matthew McConaughey, Demi Moore and more. The series won the 2021 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding News Talk Show.

In April 2023, Meta shut down Facebook Watch and as a result Talk about the red table was cancelled. The producers are currently looking for a “new home”. Talk about the red table, and the executives said in a statement on Instagram: “We are so grateful to have had such a beautiful partnership with Facebook Watch and are very sorry to see the entire team disband.”

Banfield-Norris also conducts in-depth discussions with various guests on her podcast, Positive Gam. Over the course of two seasons, its themes included masculinity, aging, and failure, among others.

She and Pinkett Smith didn’t always have a perfect relationship

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Banfield-Norris said The New York Times that she rejects the idea that she and Pinkett have an “amazing mother-daughter relationship.” She shared, “Absolutely not. And I don’t think we’ve ever tried to portray it that way. I think people want to believe that’s it.” During Pinkett Smith’s childhood, Banfield-Norris dealt with addiction, and her daughter watched her father abuse her mother.

In the May 2022 episode of the series Talk about the red table, Pinkett Smith opened up about the lack of physical love in her relationship with her mother. “She never cuddled with me,” Pinkett Smith said. Banfield-Norris added: “You’ll very rarely see Jada and I even touch each other, hug each other. It’s awkward because we didn’t hug each other in the family. We knew we were loved, but it just wasn’t that kind of nurturing.”

Banfield-Norris’ relationship with her daughter is more complicated than the one she has with her granddaughter Willow, which she called “easygoing and fun.”

Despite their sometimes rocky past, Banfield-Norris explained that she and Pinkett Smith can have a relationship now because her daughter has witnessed her growth. “People have to actually see and experience a change in you,” Banfield-Norris said The New York Times. “And that’s what Jada saw. That’s what Jada saw in me.”

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Source: HIS Education