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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
Jada Pinkett Smith has revealed that she and her famous husband, Will Smith, have secretly been separated for the last seven year, admitting that the pair, who tied the knot in 1997, are still trying to “figure out” what the future of their marriage looks like.
According to DailyMail, The 52-year-old shared the shock news about her relationship in a new interview with People, before also opening up about their situation in more detail in a sit-down with NBC News, on Wednesday.
Speaking to Hoda Kotb on the Today Show, Jada explained why her marriage to Will, 55, broke down, saying: “By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying. I think we were both still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”
Jada said she considered a legal divorce but could never go through with it, adding that she made a promise to her husband that she would never give him a reason to get divorced.
“I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through whatever. And I just haven’t been able to break that promise,” she said.
“But you still live separately?” Hoda probed, prompting Jada to confirm “We live separately.”
Speaking to People, Jada admitted the pair were in fact living separately when her husband slapped comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022, when he strode onto the stage in a burst of fury over a joke that had been made about his wife’s bald hairstyle.
She noted that no permanent decisions have been made about the future of her marriage, explaining that she and Will are “still figuring it out.”
“We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like,” the mother of two added.
Jada went on to praise her children – Jaden, 25, Willow, 22, and Trey, 30, who is Will’s son from a previous relationship – for standing by her during this rocky time in her relationship.
“My children, they’re little gurus. They’ve taught me a deep sense of self-acceptance. They love every part of me. The level of love, unconditional love that they have for me and their dad.
“And it’s one thing to want to be the person that gives that unconditional love. And then there’s, to be the recipient of that,” She said.
Will and Jada’s separation will come as a shock to many given they have denied the gossip about their marriage and kept up the appearance of a committed married couple.
At the 94th Academy Awards, Will famously slapped comedian Chris when he joked that Jada looked like ‘G.I. Jane’ because of her bald head when she had recently revealed that was suffering from alopecia.
Clearly enraged by the jab, the Fresh Prince star stormed the stage and proceeded to slap Chris for making the joke.
The shocking assault occurred moments before he took home the Best Actor gong for his portrayal of tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams’ devoted father in the film, King Richard.
In a rambling acceptance speech, a sobbing Smith admitted that “love makes you do crazy things,” but tellingly failed to apologize to Chris for his assault.
In July 2020, Jada admitted she did have an affair with singer August Alsina, 31, while married to Will during a bombshell tell-all confessional.
The actress first publicly revealed her affair when she sat down with her estranged husband for an intimate conversation on her Facebook show, Red Table Talk, where she said she developed a friendship with Alsina four years earlier. Jada revealed at the time that she and Will were going through a “difficult time” and had “basically broken up.”
At the time, Jada famously referred to the years-long affair with the R&B singer as an “entanglement” which now features as a reference in Alsina’s track ‘Shake the World’.
The shocking confession came after both actors initially denied Alsina’s claims that Will gave him his blessing to have a relationship with Jada.
The bombshell interview on Today Show comes amid Jada’s ongoing publicity tour for her new book, which has seen her opening up about a number of difficult topics including her battle with depression and despair, which began when she turned 40.
“On paper, it all looked grand – I had the beautiful family, the superstar husband, the lavish lifestyle, fame and fortune,” she writes in the book, according to an excerpt obtained by People.
However, she said that behind the scenes, “I’d fallen into despair and wanted to be on this earth less and less.”
Jada was the product of a tempestuous childhood in Baltimore, scarred by her mother’s heroin addiction and father’s alcoholism.
Against the backdrop of her turbulent home life, Jada grew to become a drug dealer by the time she befriended Tupac Shakur in high school.
In her autobiography, she writes that she discovered during adulthood that she was suffering from “complex trauma with PTSD and dissociation.”