Jada Pinkett Smith revealed during a recent interview that she and husband Will Smith have been “separated” for years.
The news went public as part of an exclusive clip from her upcoming NBC News interview with Hoda Kotb. Pinkett Smith told Kotb that her marriage is more complicated than most people realize.
While she and the “Men In Black” star have been married since 1997, she said they’ve had “completely separate lives” since 2016. Pinkett Smith also teased that more details about their relationship would be explained in her upcoming memoir, “Worthy,” which is scheduled to be released on October 17.
Kotb asked Pinkett Smith about her marriage situation, which she said “surprised her the most” out of the book’s “many surprising things.”
The “Matrix: Resurrections” actress confirmed that she and her husband are still legally married but are not romantically involved.
“It was not a divorce on paper,” Kotb said in the clip.
“Right,” Pinkett Smith replied
“But it was a divorce,” Kotb said.
“Divorce,” Pinkett Smith answered.
As for why the couple hadn’t discussed their relationship status before now, Pinkett Smith said the timing wasn’t right. She said it was due to “just not being ready yet … Still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership … In regards to, how do we present that to people? We hadn’t figured that out.”
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Kotb also asked what went wrong. “Why it fractured . ..that …. that’s a lot of things. By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying. I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be,” Pinkett Smith went on.
“I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through … whatever,” the actress said of why they never officially divorced. “I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”
The Hollywood couple made headlines in 2022 when Smith stormed onto the stage and slapped Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards after Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith having alopecia.
The actress recently addressed the incident during an interview with People. “I thought, ‘This is a skit.’ I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him,’” Pinkett Smith said of watching the slap. “It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn’t a skit.”
Previously, fans questioned Pinkett Smith having a romantic “entanglement” with singer August Alsina despite being married, which she and her husband discussed on a 2020 episode of her series, “Red Table Talk.” Prior to that, fans believed the couple had an open marriage which allowed them to date other people without consequence.