Jada Pinkett Smith has revealed that 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 forthcoming NBC News primetime special.
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“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. Pinkett Smith said while they live in separate houses, they are not legally divorced and the actress says they have no plans to.
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Their marriage has come under scrutiny during the period she says they have been apart.
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 Facebook Watch 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.
Then there was the Oscars slap – something Pinkett Smith devotes a whole chapter to in the book, speaking about the incident for the first time in the 18 months since.
During the 2022 Academy Awards, Smith stormed the stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock after he made a joke about Pinkett Smith being bald. She suffers from alopecia, which has caused her hair loss.
In addition to the primetime TV interview, Pinkett Smith also spoke to People magazine about the big revelations in her book.
The 52-year-old said in their cover story that just like many other people, she initially thought her husband’s actions were a comedic bit between the two men.
“I thought, ‘This is a skit’. I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him’,” she recalled.
“It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realised it wasn’t a skit.”
She told the publication that as soon as they were alone she asked Smith: “Are you okay?”
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 his marriage in the book.
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Pinkett Smith hinted at the bombshells to come from her book recently, telling fans on social media that despite what they thought they knew her story, they’d be surprised to know the truth.
“On October 17th, I invite you into a journey that, understandably, many think they already know,” she began.
“The fact that I have, in the last four years contributed to the creation and perpetuation of falsehoods about myself, in which other untrue narratives were birthed, has surely aided in the misunderstandings that surround me. …with deep humility and respect, I will take back my narrative.”
– Reported with CNN.
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