Jada Pinkett Smith has sent shockwaves through Hollywood by revealing she and husband Will Smith have been living “completely separate lives” since 2016.
The actress, 52, made the shock revelation in her new memoir, Worthy, and spoke to American TV host Hoda Kotb about their split, with the sit-down interview set to air in the US on October 13.
Pinkett Smith, who once was close to late rapper Tupac, insisted she and Will are committed to being a ”partnership” and are not yet legally divorced and have no plans to officially end things.
Watch the video above.
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She also revealed in her memoir that Chris Rock once asked her out on a date, when he heard rumours she and Will were planning to get a divorce.
“So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?'” she explained.
Fans will remember that in March 2022 at the Oscars, Smith, 55, walked on stage in front of the star-studded crowd to slap host Rock, 58, after he joked about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head – she has the condition alopecia.
From revealing the separation to speaking about Rock and even her close friendship with Tupac to considering suicide; 9Honey Celebrity takes a look at some of the biggest revelations to come out of her new book and the subsequent interviews she’s been doing while on the promotional trail.
Her separation from Will Smith
Pinkett Smith revealed she and husband Will Smith have been living “completely separate lives” since 2016.
Pinkett Smith made the revelation in her new memoir, Worthy, and told US TV host Hoda Kotb the couple had not previously gone public with their separation because they were not “ready yet”.
They were “still trying to figure out between the two of us, how to be in partnership,” she said in a clip from her upcoming NBC News primetime special.
“How do we present that to people?” she told Kotb. “We hadn’t figured that out.”
Pinkett Smith, 52, and Smith, 55, have been married since 1997. They share son Jaden, 25, and daughter Willow, 22, together. Will is also father to son Trey Smith, 30, who he shares with Sheree Zampino.
Pinkett Smith said while they live in separate houses, they are not legally divorced and the actress says they have no plans to.
Pinkett Smith told Kotb during their interview that the marriage fractured because of “a lot of things”.
“I think by the time we got to 2016, we we both just exhausted with trying,” Pinkett Smith said.
“I think we were both kind of still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”
She said she “made a promise” that there would never be a reason for her and Smith to divorce “and I just haven’t been able to break that promise”, she said.
Smith released his own memoir, Will, in 2021 but did not reveal the true state of their marriage in the book.
Their marriage has come under scrutiny during the period she says they have been apart – and it wasn’t just the Oscars slap that made headlines.
In July 2020, singer August Alsina revealed that he had been romantically involved with Pinkett Smith, something she confirmed during an episode with her husband on her talk show Red Table Talk.
”I got into an entanglement with August,” Pinkett Smith said at the time, explaining then that the superstar couple “were going through a very difficult time” when it occurred.
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Chris Rock asked her out on a date
Pinkett Smith reveals in her memoir, set to be released on October 17, that Chris Rock once asked her out on a date.
She told PEOPLE this week that Rock made his move after he heard rumours she and Will were getting divorced.
“So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?'” she explained.
“He was like, ‘Well, aren’t you and Will getting a divorce?’ I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologised and that was that.”
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The Oscars slap
Pinkett Smith also told PEOPLE she thought the fateful Oscars slap last year was a “skit”.
“I thought, ‘This is a skit,'” Pinkett Smith told the publication.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him.’ It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realised it wasn’t a skit.”
She said straight after, she asked Will: “Are you OK?”
She added in the book that she was shocked to hear Will say she was his ”wife,” writing: “But when I hear Will yell ‘wife’ in the chaos of the moment, an internal shift of Oh s–t… I am his wife! happens instantly.”
Rock, as he was introducing the award for Best Documentary Feature, made an ad-libbed joke about 51-year-old Pinkett Smith’s appearance, specifically her bald hairstyle.
”Jada, I love you, G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,” Rock said on-stage, in reference to 1997’s G.I. Jane, which saw a Demi Moore, with a shaved head, play a soldier entering the armed forces.
Pinkett Smith, who has been open about her journey with the autoimmune disease alopecia and began shaving her head in 2021 when “problem” hairless spots became harder to hide, was shown rolling her eyes at Rock’s joke, while Smith, at first, laughed.
Smith then stormed the stage, slapped Rock, and returned to his seat.
As everyone was trying to figure out if the move was scripted, Rock deadpanned: “Will Smith just slapped the s–t out of me.”
Smith, meanwhile, shouted from his seat: “Keep my wife’s name out of your f–king mouth.”
“Wow, dude, it was a G.I. Jane joke,” Rock responded, while Smith repeated his previous sentiment.
Minutes later, Smith went on to win Best Actor, and in his speech he apologised to the Academy and his fellow nominees – but not to Rock.
Rock said when he made the joke, he was not aware of Pinkett Smith’s well-documented battle with alopecia.
Smith has since been banned from the Oscars gala and other Academy-associated events for 10 years after the incident.
In a statement, he described his behaviour at the Oscars as ”unacceptable and inexcusable”, writing: “Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive.”
Months later after an extended period of social media silence, Smith made another apology, this time on-camera, in a YouTube video titled, “It’s been a minute…”
Jada’s suicidal thoughts
Pinkett Smith revealed she suffered from depression in her forties and even had suicidal thoughts.
“When I turned 40, I was in so much pain. I couldn’t figure a way out besides death. So I made a plan,” she said, according to PEOPLE.
In an excerpt from her book, previously shared with the publication, she said she suffered from complex trauma with PTSD and dissociation.
“‘On paper,’ it all looked grand — I had the beautiful family, the superstar husband, the lavish lifestyle, fame and fortune,” she writes.
“Yet none of that prevented me from hitting the wall I was speeding toward at a hundred miles per hour, knowing full well — this s—‘s gonna blow!”
“Adding to my distress, Will and I weren’t in a good place and hadn’t been for a while.”
Pinkett Smith said she turned to the psychedelic drug ayahuasca, which she claims helped her develop a “new intimate relationship with herself”.
Her close friendship and bond with Tupac
Just three weeks ago, Pinkett Smith shared a preview of her memoir on Instagram and spoke about her friendship with late rapper Tupac Shakur.
The pair went to the Baltimore School for the Arts in Maryland together.
She shared a video of herself and Tupac dancing to Parents Just Don’t Understand by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (Will Smith).
“Not in a million years did I imagine three lives, their fates, would be so intertwined. And… I never would have imagined that this video would become a tangible memory, of the last time Pac and I, were simply kids together,” she wrote.
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She added in her post: “Pac and I lip syncing Parents Just Don’t Understand by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince during our Junior year in high school. Who would have thought?”
Tupac, who was considered one of the greatest rappers of all time, died in 1996 after being fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in the Las Vegas.
In 2015, she told Howard Stern that their relationship was never romantic, but they had an incredible friendship.
“You know, it’s so funny because now being older, I have more of an understanding of what that was between us,” she said.
“When you have two young people that have very strong feelings, but there was no physical chemistry between us at all, and it wasn’t even just for me – it was him too.”
But she said she had “never in her life met a person like Pac”.
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