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When Will Smith shouted “Keep my wife’s name out your mouth” to Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscar Awards, he wasn’t exactly being entirely forthright about the nature of his relationship with Jada Pinkett Smith.
As revealed by the 52-year-old actress overnight, the Smiths have secretly been separated since 2016. Pinkett Smith confessed the news on American news breakfast series The Today Show, revealing that she and her husband are not together romantically, nor have they been living under the same roof since their separation seven years ago.
The revelation came as Pinkett Smith read an excerpt from her upcoming memoir. Pinkett Smith divulged that the pair have been living “completely separate lives” ever since, with the couple calling it quits just shy of their 20th wedding anniversary.
“It wasn’t a divorce on paper, but it wasn’t a divorce,” The Today Show host Hoda Kotb proposed to Pinkett Smith. A sentiment which she wholeheartedly agreed with.
Pinkett Smith goes on to explain the reason behind their split, and more relevantly, the reason they’ve kept it a secret for so long. “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,” the actress explained.
The Smiths kept up the public image of their idealised marriage throughout the past few years, even after news of Pinkett Smith’s four-year “entanglement” with August Alsina came to light. Though vitriol was directed at Pinkett Smith about the “affair”, the Hollywood power couple still chose to remain silent about the true status of their relationship, a decision she attributes to “just not being ready yet”.
Pinkett Smith explained she was “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”.
Despite their current separation, Pinkett Smith revealed that she and her estranged husband have no plans to officially divorce. “I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce,” she said. “We will work through … whatever. I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”
The Smiths share two children, musicians Jaden, 25, and Willow, 22. The Smith family is yet to officially comment on the news, but with Pinkett Smith’s memoir about to be released, we’re sure this story will evolve as more information emerges. Stay tuned.
