Gabrielle Union and Jada Pinkett Smith Apparently Had a 17-Year Secret Feud, But It’s Over Now

Allow Jada Pinkett Smith to demonstrate the most dignified way to start, maintain, and end a long-term celebrity feud: This week, while promoting her upcoming Facebook Watch talk show, the actress disclosed for the first time that she and Gabrielle Union haven’t been on speaking terms for nearly two decades. In the same breath, before fans could fully process this reveal, Pinkett Smith shared that this secret feud had recently been resolved—without it ever making headlines or damaging either actress’s reputation in any way. According to the 46-year-old, the resolution came about when the producers of her new show, Red Table Talk, insisted that she bring Union on the program.

“I have a really touching episode with Gabrielle Union. We haven’t really been on the best of terms for 17 years, and we have a reconciliation,” Pinkett Smith told Extra on Thursday, adding that neither she nor Union could “even remember why” the feud started in the first place. “They were like, ‘We wanna do a girlfriends show,’ and I was like, ‘Well… .’ [But] her name just kept coming up. It just couldn’t be anything else,” Pinkett Smith said of how she somewhat reluctantly agreed to do an episode with Union. “So we brought [the feud] to the table.”

Union’s episode of the show won’t be the only one where Pinkett Smith and her cohosts—mom Adrienne Banfield-Norris and daughter Willow Smith—hash out some drama. Pinkett Smith told Extra that the first episode of the show, airing next Monday (May 7) and honoring Mother’s Day, will feature her husband Will Smith‘s first wife, Sheree Zampino, with whom he shares 25-year-old son Trey. “When we get to the red table, you hear about the stuff that didn’t go so well!” Pinkett Smith said. “We talk about our 23 years together in this thing called family.”

The Girls Trip star’s Facebook Watch show will air on the social media site’s video-sharing platform for 10 episodes and feature Pinkett Smith, Banfield-Norris, and 17-year-old Willow engaging in “a series of candid conversations with family and friends,” according to the site. “Red Table Talk is about raw truth, love, and deep passion. My mother is old school, Willow is new school, and I find myself right in the middle,” Pinkett Smith told People earlier this year. “I’ve done a lot of sharing and growing on Facebook. Being able to engage with the Facebook Watch community in such a deeply personal way is amazing, and I’m excited to be part of something new.”