Ayesha Curry opened up in a new interview this week about the perils of celebrity, describing a particularly bad experience she had in 2019 when she appeared on Jada Pinkett Smith’s “Red Table Talk” Facebook show and revealed her insecurities about seeing her superstar husband Steph Curry get so much female attention.
In an interview with Insider published this week, Curry complained that her comments on “Red Table Talk” were “edited in a way that made me sound crazy.”
“It’s not what I said, and the context was weird,” the cookbook author, lifestyle entrepreneur and mother of three told Insider. “Yeah. I took that one personally.”
During Curry’s appearance on “Red Table Talk,” she joined Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willow Smith and her mother Adrienne “Gammy” Banfield-Norris for a candid conversation surrounding mental health, Entertainment Tonight reported. Also sitting at “The Table” were Curry’s mother-in-law Sonya Curry and sister-in-law Sydel Curry-Lee.
During the conversation, Curry was prompted by Pinkett Smith to address her feelings about the women vying for the attention of her husband, the Golden State Warrior’s most famous player. Curry said her husband “is very nice by nature,” but that has led to women “throwing themselves” at him and “always be lurking, hoping for their moment and waiting.”
“I honestly hate it,” Curry admitted. Curry also said she sometimes wondered if there was something wrong with her because she wasn’t on the receiving end of male attention.
“I have zero — this sounds weird— but, like, male attention,” Curry said to the group. “So then I begin to internalize it and I’m like, ‘Is something wrong with me?’”
Curry insisted: “I don’t want (the attention), but it would be nice to know that someone’s looking.’”
As “Insider” said, Curry shared “real and vulnerable human emotions.” At the time the show was taped, Curry also was newly postpartum and breastfeeding, having given birth to their son Canon in 2018.
Unfortunately, Curry’s comments sparked an online backlash, apparently because people took issue with her saying it would be nice to get attention from a man other than her husband. Curry defended herself on Instagram by writing that she’s “never been one to cage my feelings and emotions to any capacity. I am human.”
Steph Curry also went on Instagram to defend his wife, the Daily Mail reported. The NBA pro shared a photo of her and wrote: “Proud of you for being authentic and putting yourself out there — not being afraid of the potential (expletive) and nonsense that could and did come at you.”
At the time, Ayesha Curry didn’t mention any concerns about “Red Table Talk’s” editing her comments in a negative way, and even urged her followers to watch the show — not just read “the headlines and rumors.” Curry also gave a shout out to Pinkett Smith, writing: “There is so much more depth to the talk and our family is grateful to @jadapinkettsmith for giving us the opportunity to bond together.”
Unfortunately, the wife of Will Smith and her relatives are no longer bringing celebrity families together on “Red Table Talk.” The show was canceled last month as Facebook Watch decided to end its original programming, “Entertainment Tonight” said. The show completed its original season order and the show’s production company, Westbrook Studios, is looking for a new home.
In her Insider interview, Curry also talked about her decision to pull her children — Riley, 10; Ryan, 7; and Canon, 4 — away from the public eye. When Riley, specifically, was younger, her impromptu antics at her father’s games and post-game interviews captured the camera’s eye and fans fell in love with the little girl. Curry said she regrets the overexposure.
“When the social media thing started, nobody knew what that was going to become,” Curry told Insider. “If we had known back in the day just how chaotic it would make life, I don’t think we would’ve done it. But we were just genuinely living our lives back then. And we thought, ‘This is our kid. We’re bringing our kid along.’”
