Sheree Zampino admits she didn’t have eye to eye with ex-husband Will Smith and his new wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, when they first co-parented their son Trey Smith.
The entrepreneur explained in David Yontef’s podcast “Behind the Velvet Rope” that it wasn’t always “easy” or “pretty” to determine everyone’s place in the blended family.
Zampino, 54, and Will, 53, were married for three years before breaking up in 1995. Two years later, the actor married Jada, 50.
With “three different dynamics, three different personalities and [three] different belief systems,” Zampino explained that “there were times” when they all disagreed on how to coexist while raising Trey, now 29.
“My thing was with Jada — it was like, as long as she treats him right, we’re good,” said Zampino, who joined “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” as Garcelle Beauvais’ boyfriend.
She further acknowledged that the host of “Red Table Talk” has always “handled” [Trey] good’ and ‘loved him’. Trey was only 5 years old when Will and Jada got married.
“Then sometimes mothers get jealous,” Zampino confessed. “It’s like, ‘I get jealous of another woman for treating my child well? What? That’s crazy! isn’t it? want her to treat your child well?’”
Zampino said her “heart is always ahead” [her] child”, something she learned from her own mother.
“My child comes first. He really does it,” she said. “So it’s not about me anymore. You know, [his father and I are] not together. It’s not about me. It’s about him.”
Zampino was happy to hear that Will and Jada shared the same opinion, which was tested when the couple welcomed their own children together: son Jaden Smith, 24, and daughter Willow Smith, 21.
“Then Jaden comes along, then Willow. It is about these babies. So how do we do this when we honor them and put them first and we don’t take anything good away from them,” Zampino recalls, explaining that “the good” referred to the children’s relationships with each other and with all three parental figures .
“We were just able to get there and I’m thankful for it,” she said, though noting that she “couldn’t really give details of the why” or how.
“But I’m thankful that we were all on the same frequency and on the same page to really want to do that, which is probably why we’re being called together in this space,” she continued.
“Anyone could have been Trey’s mother. Anyone could have been Jaden and Willow’s mother. But the fact that He chose the three of us – He is God – I think that’s why we were able to do it and show the world.”
Even if there are unavoidable bumps along the way, Zampino said she and the Smiths will “get back on that horse” because they all agree in the end.
“It’s about the family. It’s about the kids. We have a responsibility to them,” she concluded.
Zampino and Will have remained on good terms after their divorce in 1995.
Reality even congratulated her ex when he won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in “King Richard.”