The public first caught wind of the secret beef when Jada Pinkett Smith was promoting “Red Table Talk” in an interview withEssence. At the time, Pinkett Smith told the outlet viewers could expect to see her navigating deeply personal issues — including her longtime feud with Gabrielle Union. “She and I did not talk for 17 years and we could not remember why,” she revealed. “There was just tension between us every time we would see each other. It was just us being young, divas.” Union felt the same way, as she told the “Today Show”that both parties didn’t know what caused the fallout.
But what prompted the olive branch? How did Pinkett Smith even get the idea to have Union on her controversial show? It all started when the executive producer of “Red Table Talk” proposed to Pinkett Smith an episode focused on her female friendships. But instead of inviting her old pals, the “Matrix Reloaded” star decided it was her chance to call a truce. “I was like, no, I actually think I want to make a new girlfriend,” Pinkett Smith told Essence. “Gabrielle’s name just wouldn’t stop, it just had to be that. So I just called her up.”
As for how that meeting went? Well, it sounds like Pinkett Smith’s gesture of goodwill paid off.