Jada Pinkett Smith revealed in her upcoming memoir and in a special with Hoda Kotb airing October 13 at 8:00 pm ET/PT on NBC that her marriage to Will Smith is not what it seems.
Pinkett Smith and Smith have been separated since 2016. Although they are not legally divorced, they have been living “completely different lives” for the past seven years, she told Hoda.
In an exclusive clip from the upcoming special, Pinkett Smith opened up about her relationship status with Hoda.
“There was no divorce on paper,” Kotb explained.
“That’s right,” Pinkett Smith responded.
“…but it was a scam,” Kotb continued.
“Divorce,” Pinkett Smith emphasized.
Over the years, the couple has faced public scandals, such as Pinkett Smith’s reported hookup with Augusta Alsina in 2020 and Smith’s fallout with Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars. Smith slapped the Oscars presenter for making a joke about Pinkett Smith’s alopecia.
Pinkett Smith also spoke with Hoda about what led to the “breakup” of the relationship.
“It’s… it’s a lot of things,” Pinkett Smith responded when Hoda asked directly.
“By 2016, we were just tired of trying. I think we’re both still stuck in our fantasies of what we think the other person should be like,” she said.
Before this revelation, the couple often shared the ups and downs of their relationship with vulnerability and candor.
Smith appeared twice on Pinkett Smith’s now-canceled Facebook Watch show “Red Table Talk” – first in 2018 to tell the story of their relationship and “unique union”, then in 2020 to talk about Pinkett Smith’s “bonds” with a family friend Augusta. Alsina.
Here’s what the duo had to say specifically on the topic of divorce, which may explain why they decided not to get one.
What did Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith say about their divorce?
The couple has historically stated their strong stance on divorce. Smith summed it up best during a 2008 appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”: “Divorce just isn’t an option.”
“I found that divorce just wasn’t an option,” the actor explained. “It’s really that simple. If you have the chance, one day this person will make you want a divorce. She’s about to say something. Someone will say something. You absolutely get to a point where you’re done and the only thing that keeps you going is the lack of other options,” he said.
“And I think that’s the problem with Los Angeles—there are so many options. So a huge part of the success for me and Jada is that we just eliminated other options. together, somehow, so we could try to be happy,” he continued.
Smith said something similar on MTV News in 2006. “Divorce cannot be an option. Together with Jada, I stood before God and said, “Till death do us part.” So there are two possible outcomes. Firstly, we will be together until we die, or secondly, I will die,” he said.
Pinkett Smith repeated these remarks years later, in 2018, during Smith’s first appearance on Red Table Talk. “I told Will from the gate… “If you marry me, know that we will be together.” We’ll be under the same roof’…personally, I knew there was no reason why he and I would ever (divorce),” she said.
In another 2018 On an episode of Red Table Talk, this time about Life After Divorce, Pinkett Smith said something similar. “I’m not mature enough to get a divorce,” Jada said. “I just don’t. I don’t think I’ll ever be mature enough. I don’t.”
Smith was previously married. He and ex-wife Sheri Fletcher Zampino share son Trey, 31. Zampino filed for divorce in 1995.
On Red Table Talk in 2018, Smith said he was having a hard time with his divorce from Zampino. “I thought, ‘Oh! Oh! And I still told her, I said, “No. You can’t get a divorce. And she hit me: “So you’re going to force someone to stay with you who doesn’t love you?” And I said, “Actually, that’s not true.” No, I’m not like that. And that amazed me,” he said.
So in 2011, when he and Pinkett Smith reached a breaking point and “completely failed,” Smith said on Red Table Talk that he wanted to avoid divorce.
“Because I’ve been divorced before, I won’t get divorced again,” he said. “Divorce was not an option.”
The couple “rethought” their relationship in 2011, after Jada’s 40th birthday.
Pinkett Smith said on “Red Table Talk” that her 40th birthday party was a “turning point” in their relationship.
Smith hired Mary J. Blige to perform and create a documentary about Pinkett Smith’s origins, which took three years to complete. According to Smith, the party took place when Pinkett Smith was going through a “difficult time” emotionally.
“It’s going to be a blast,” Smith said of his intentions behind the party. “This was supposed to be what pulled her out of her midlife crisis. This was to be my deepest declaration of love.”
Pinkett Smith did not take this gesture very warmly. “She told me that the party was the most ridiculous manifestation of my ego. Crushed, right? To this day I know I was crushed because it was the truth. This was not a party for her,” He said.
After an argument the day after the party, Pinkett Smith changed her approach to marriage.
“It was a demonstration, that moment when I had the courage to just say no.” But now I had to have the courage to figure it out, and I just realized, “In the next 40 years, I have to do this.” my way,” she said. “The next half should be based on my picture for myself.”
“Our marriage didn’t work out,” Smith writes in her memoir of the time, released in 2021. “We couldn’t pretend anymore. We were both miserable and obviously something needed to change.”
At some point, the relationship became non-monogamous, Smith confirms in his 2021 memoir.
“We chose monogamy for most of our relationships, without thinking of monogamy as the only perfect relationship. We gave each other trust and freedom, believing that everyone should find their own path. And marriage for us “Cannot be a prison. And I don’t offer our path to anyone. I don’t offer this path to anyone. But the experience that the freedoms that we gave to each other and unconditional support give me is the highest definition of love,” he writes.
The couple got back together after their 2011 split, this time with “new rules,” Smith said on “Red Table Talk” in 2018.
Pinkett Smith was wary of traditional marriage from the start. The couple married in 1997 when she was three months pregnant with their son Jayden, now 25.
On Red Table Talk in 2018, she said: “I was so upset that I had to have a wedding. I was so angry. I cried down the damn aisle getting married,” she added.
Smith wrote in his 2021 memoir Will that the traditional wedding ceremony was a sacrifice for Jada: “It would be the first of many compromises Jada would make over the years, painfully denying her own values.”