Jada Pinkett Smith is revealing the truth about her long marriage to actor Will Smith in a clip promoting her upcoming memoir “Worthy,” saying she and her husband have been been separated and living “completely separate lives” for the last seven years, the culmination of a complex relationship that has played out in public since their marriage in 1997.
Will Smith and his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, attend the World Premiere of Disney's "Aladdin" ... [+]
The two met briefly in 1994—while he was still married to actress Sheree Zampino—when she auditioned for the role of his girlfriend on the hit sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Smith said he cried in a bathroom while on a date with his ex-wife because he knew Pinkett Smith "was the woman I was supposed to be with," and the pair started dating just before his divorce was finalized.
The pair was engaged the day before they found out Pinkett Smith was pregnant in November of 1997, she told People, and they married shortly after on New Years Eve.
The couple welcomed their first son, actor and rapper Jaden Christopher Syre Smith.
Daughter, singer and actor Willow Camille Reign Smith, was born.
The first rumors of trouble started in 2011 with whispers that Pinkett Smith was secretly seeing Marc Anthony, which she and Will Smith denied in a statement, saying, "our marriage is still in tact."
The couple would later reveal they did break up for a time in 2011 and Will Smith looked back on it in his 2021 memoir, writing: "Our marriage wasn’t working…We were both miserable and clearly something had to change.”
Pinkett Smith took to Facebook to address rumors she and Smith had an open relationship, where she said "Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want."
More speculation about the pair's unique relationship agreement circulated after Pinkett Smith said in an interview with Howard Stern, "just because your man is attracted to another woman doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you," and two months later Will Smith said on Facebook, "Jada and I are... NOT GETTING A DIVORCE!"
Pinkett Smith and singer August Alsina attended the 2017 BET Awards together and were reportedly seen looking “cozy” before she addressed rumors she and Will are swingers with "‘yo, I wish. I wish," on Watch What Happens Live!
Three years later, Will Smith said on a podcast that he and his wife "refer to ourselves as life partners" and don't say they're "married anymore," adding, "There’s nothing she could do — ever. Nothing that would break our relationship."
Alsina uses a GIF of Pinkett Smith in a music video alongside the lyrics, "Putting on a show ’cause you don’t want the world to know/ That you lost a man who loved you all along," further fueling rumors the pair had a relationship.
Alsina claims he and Pinkett Smith did have a relationship, that her marriage was open at the time and that it came with the blessing of her husband: "(I) totally gave myself to that relationship for years of my life and i truly and really, really deeply loved (Pinkett Smith)."
Representatives for Pinkett Smith call Alsina’s claims "absolutely not true."
Pinkett Smith reveals on her online talk show, Red Table Talk, that the relationship did happen but that she and Will were separated at the time and he never gave his blessing.
The Smiths attend the Oscars together—the year Will won for his role in King Richard—but before his win is even announced he walks on stage to slap comedian Chris Rockafter the comedian made a G.I. Jane joke about Pinkett Smitt, who had spoken previously about struggling with hair loss from alopecia.
Smith is banned from all Academy events and programs for the next 10 years.
Pinkett Smith breaks her silence on the slap and says she and Will Smith are "continuing to do what we have done for the last 28 years, and that’s keep figuring out this thing called life together."
The pair attend the premiere of Emancipation, their first red carpet appearance since the Academy Awards.
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith attend the 94th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood and Highland on ... [+]
“Divorce,” Pinkett Smith said of her and Smith’s relationship in a clip from her upcoming special on NBC News. Host Hoda Kotb clarified "it was not a divorce on paper."
Red Table Talk, a talk show anchored by Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris, was canceled in April. It first premiered in 2018 and had 129 episodes through Facebook's efforts to create original programming.
“Worthy" will be released on October 17. Pinkett Smith's full interview with NBC's Kotb will air on Friday at 8 p.m. ET.
Will Smith was ranked No. 69 on Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list in 2020 with an estimated earnings of $44.5 million that year. He earned eight-figure salaries for leading roles like King Richard and has made millions through monetizing his instagram, YouTube and TikTok. He is said to have made $100 million from his role in Men in Black 3, $20 million on the Netflix original movie Bright in 2017 and $35 million for its sequel.
Jada Pinkett Smith reveals she and Will Smith have been separated since 2016 (NBC News)
Six Months After ‘The Slap,’ Will Smith Remains Uncanceled (Forbes)