Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith Have Been Separated since 2016

Jada Pinkett Smith has revealed that she and her husband Will Smith have been living “completely separate lives” since 2016.

In a clip from her forthcoming NBC News primetime special with Hoda Kotb, Pinkett Smith said the couple had not previously gone public with their separation because they were not ready yet and were still trying to figure out how to be in partnership.

Pinkett Smith, 52, and Smith, 55, have been married since 1997. Pinkett Smith said they are not legally divorced. 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 Will Smith on “Red Table Talk.”

“I got into an entanglement with August,” Pinkett Smith said at the time, explaining then that the couple “were going through a very difficult time” when it occurred.

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,” she said. “I think we were both kind of still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”

Pinkett Smith added 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.

She also got candid about the Oscar slap incident that took place during the 94th Academy Awards on March 27, 2022, when 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 a new interview with People, Pinkett Smith opened up about the incident, noting like many other people, she initially thought was 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 realized it wasn’t a skit.”

“From where I was sitting I couldn't tell. It didn't look like Will hit Chris, because, number one, I'd seen Will in the boxing ring with pro fighters — Will's a heavy-hitter. So when Chris moved, it looked like he ducked or he missed the shot. And when he continued to stand, and then when he continued to walk down to the end of the stage, I was like, ‘There's no way. There's no way that Will hit him.’ ”

She added, “It wasn't until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn't a skit. I was in as much of a fog as anybody else in that room that night.”

Pinkett Smith remembers trying to “keep myself grounded and settled for the people around us, and specifically for Will” in the immediate aftermath. The first thing she said to Will afterward was: “Are you okay?”

“I wasn't quite sure what was going on. I just knew, one thing I've realized in everything I've been through is stay calm, stay clear. Just so you can keep your awareness on what is happening around you.”

Jada says, that because of her “own journey of self-worth,” she’s finding a way to support Will Smith while letting him figure out his path on his own.

“For a lot of years, I've taken on a lot of responsibility thinking that I'm responsible for a lot of things that just aren't my responsibility. Part of my codependency,” she says.

“I'm going to be by his side, but also allow him to have to figure this out for himself. [I’m] finding a way to support him without trying to take away or deal with it for him, what he has to be with.”

Pinkett Smith hasn’t spoken to Chris Rock since the Oscars incident, but she hopes everyone involved can find “peace.”

“[Do I have] any desire to talk to Chris? Here's my desire: I just hope that all the misunderstanding around this can be cleared up and that there can be peace,” she adds.

“I talk about this in the book, I think that there might be some misunderstanding between Chris and I as far as the 2016 Oscars. I think that he might've taken offense, which I meant no harm in offending. That wasn't my intention. But I do think that there's a big misunderstanding there,” she noted.

Back in 2016, when Will was overlooked for his Concussion performance and the acting nominations recognized no actors of color, Pinkett Smith was vocally in support of the #OscarsSoWhite movement, calling for a boycott of the show.

Rock, who was hosting that year, made jokes about the actress in his monologue. And, in his Netflix comedy special earlier this year, Chris claimed that she told him he should quit the hosting gig out of solidarity.

Pinkett Smith admits to “not really recognizing the level of pressure [Chris] might've been under” at the time.

“I probably should have called him and gone, ‘Hey, are you okay? And just know that although I'm speaking out about the Oscars, I do wish you the best and I just want you to know that,’ me taking the time to have called him and said that, just to touch base. But his feelings might've been hurt,” she noted.

“All we can ever do is just look at our part and see where could I have done something that would've seemed as if... Whatever misunderstanding might've been created, what could I have done to avoid that misunderstanding? The one thing that I think about is that call.”

Pinkett Smith says Rock called her afterward in 2016 and she thought they’d moved on.

“He apologized and I apologized to him as well,” she says. “So I actually thought that we were good, that the hatchet was buried between us. And we hadn't talked since then until 2022 came.”

Directly after the slap, Pinkett Smith says Rock came downstage to speak to her during a pause in the live broadcast, where he was presenting an award.

“Chris came down to the end of the stage and tried to apologize to me. He said, ‘I didn't mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can't talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s---.’ I thought this was [about] the Oscar 2016 and … their stuff that they had before I even came into the picture in the late ‘80s. I’ve got to leave that to Will and Chris to talk about, but they got their stuff for sure.”

“I mean, that's what comedians do,” Pinkett Smith noted. “I would just have to say that I am not really here to make any judgment on how people decide to express themselves and express their art. I'll say that several times I've had my feelings hurt, for sure. I've had my feelings hurt a lot by Chris. But at the end of the day, too, being in the spotlight, it comes with the territory.”

She also reveals in her book that Rock once asked her out on a date.

Explaining more, she noted: “I think every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce. And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce. So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I'd love to take you out.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He was like, ‘Well, aren't you and Will getting a divorce?’ I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.”

The actress reveals more about her marriage, career, and early life in her memoir, “Worthy” out Oct. 17.