Tiffany Haddish, Alicia Keys & Queen Latifah Praise Jada Pinkett Smith as 'Powerful' Trailblazer
Jada Pinkett Smith may not be sure if she’s worthy of the trailblazer award, but her friends have no doubts whatsoever!
The actress and host of Facebook Watch’s hit talk-show Red Table Talk picked up the Trailblazer Award at the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards on Monday.
The prize was presented to Smith by her Girls Trip costar Tiffany Haddish, who, in true fashion, joked about Smith’s legendary status in Hollywood and ageless appearance, quipping, “Somehow after being in the game for 30 years, she still looks 28.”
In a clip highlighting her many accomplishments, Smith was also praised by Queen Latifah and Alicia Keys.
Of their friend, Latifah explained, “She has a really good heart, she cares about people,” while Keys chimed in about Smith’s worldwide impact and noted how “she is a powerful voice for women.”
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Smith, 47, was then escorted on stage by her 20-year-old son Jaden, who made sure to hype up the crowd before his mom began her empowering and honest speech.
“It’s a trip because when MTV called me to receive an award for trailblazing, I was like, ‘Alright, I don’t know if I deserve this quite yet but I’m really glad MTV thinks so!'”
She went on to share how she started questioning why she didn’t deserve the award and told the audience that she came to the realization that everyone has the power to be a “trailblazer.”
“It was because I was comparing myself to all the many trailblazers that I admired and I realized, ‘Okay, maybe we do have something in common,'” she explained. “Often we applaud the trails that people blaze in the external world that we can see, but very rarely do we applaud the trails that are blazed in the hidden rooms of the mind, that are full of uncertainty, false beliefs, and pain.”
“It’s these eternal obstacles that must be challenged in order to muster the courage to forge new paths that we can see in the world,” she said before noting, “Every last person in this room must do that at some capacity.”
“That means that every single person in this room is trailblazing whether it’s within or without,” she added. “So as you honor me tonight, I wanna honor all of you and I wanna say here’s to us for all of our trailblazing!”
Previous recipients of the award include Lena Waithe, Shailene Woodley, Channing Tatum, Emma Watson and Emma Stone.
Red Table Talk — hosted by Smith, along with her mother Adrienne Banfield Norris and daughter Willow Smith — recently returned for a season of all-new episodes.
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The Facebook Watch show gained widespread attention when Jordyn Woods appeared in a one-on-one with Smith, a close family friend, to discuss the scandal involving Tristan Thompson and Khloé Kardashian.
The interview, which occurred on March 1, achieved huge viewing numbers. According to Variety, the show was streamed by about 7.5 million Facebook viewers within the first 24 hours, a clear record for the Facebook talk show.
The show currently has over 5.6 million followers on Facebook, and earned its first nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award’s Outstanding Talk Show category
The MTV Movie & TV Awards aired Monday, June 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT from the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California. The simulcast was the no. 1 cable premiere of the quarter and TV’s most social show, averaging 3 million viewers across linear and social platforms. On Twitter, #MTVAwards was the top trending topic in the U.S. for seven hours.
