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Willow Smith opens up about battle with self harm

SELF-HARM: 17-year-old Willow Smith shared her struggles with fame in the latest episode of Red Table Talk

WILLOW SMITH has opened up to her mother and millions about her hidden battle with self-harm in a heartfelt episode of Red Table Talk, the Facebook exclusive chat show that she hosts alongside her mother and grandmother.

The Whip My Hair singer revealed that at the age of 9, she succumbed to the pressures of stardom when self-doubt began to kick in when she was a new artist.

She said: “I just stopped doing singing lessons and I was kind of just in this grey area of ‘who am I?’ Do I have a purpose? Is there anything I can do besides this?’”

Smith explained that the demands of being a young artist took its toll on her wellbeing.

“After the tour and the promotion they wanted me to finish my album and I was like ‘no I’m not going to do that’.”

When life as an artist settled down, Smith said: “It was a kind of low. I was listening to a lot of dark music and it was so crazy. I was plunged into this black hole. I was, like, cutting myself and doing crazy things.”

The reality of Smith’s experience took both her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith, and grandmother, Adrienne Banfield-Jones, by surprise.

As she directed them to table to where she had self-harmed, Smith said: “I totally lost my sanity for a minute there. I was experiencing so much emotional pain but my physical circumstances weren’t reflecting that.”

Smith reassured her mother that her self-harming days were over.

She said: “This is actually psychotic, and after that, I just stopped. It’s been, like, five years.”

“There’s more awareness now than when we were both coming up,” Pinkett Smith to her mother about self-harm and abuse.

The new television talk show Red Table Talk captures the candid conversations of Pinkett Smith, her daughter and her mother.

Watch the video here: here

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