American actress Jada Pinkett Smith recently disclosed that she and her husband, Will Smith, have been separated since 2016.
She said they have been discreetly living separately for the past seven years, openly acknowledging that they are in the process of determining the future of their marriage.
The actress, 52, said this in an interview with Sky’s US partner network NBC News.
In an exclusive clip from her upcoming NBC News primetime special with Hoda Kotb, Pinkett Smith mentioned that they haven’t previously announced their separation because they simply trying to ‘figure out’ to do so.
According to Jada, she and Will have been” living separately and living completely” independent lives since 2016, nearly two decades after their marriage in 1997.
In July 2020, singer August Alsina revealed that he had been romantically involved with the actress, something she confirmed during an episode with her husband on “Red Table Talk.”
“I got into an entanglement with August,” Pinkett said at the time, explaining then that the couple “were going through a very difficult time” when it occurred.
Will Smith, during the 2022 Oscars, stormed the stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock after he made a joke about Jada’s bald hairstyle. She suffers from alopecia, which causes her hair loss.
Jada Pinkett Smith hasn’t spoken to Chris Rock since the Oscars incident, but she hopes everyone involved can find “peace.”
The actress, whose book Worthy is out Oct. 17, tells PEOPLE in a candid new interview that “No, I haven’t talked to Chris” since March 27, 2022, when her husband, Will Smith, struck him onstage at the Oscars after taking issue with a joke made about Jada.
“[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 offence, which I meant no harm in offending. That wasn’t my intention. But I do think that there’s a big misunderstanding there,” says Jada.
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The talk show host emphasised that they haven’t made any definitive decisions about the future of their marriage and that she and Will are still in the process of “figuring things out.”
“We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got a deep love for each other, and we are going to figure out what that looks like,” she said.
The 52-year-old also revealed to Kotb during their interview that the marriage fractured because of “a lot of things.”
“I think by the time we got to 2016, we were both just exhausted with trying, I think we were both kind of still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be,” Jada said.
The American actress also said she “made a promise” that there would never be a reason for her and Smith to divorce.
“ I just haven’t been able to break that promise,” she said.
Pinkett Smith reveals more about her marriage, career and early life in her forthcoming memoir, “Worthy.” The book releases Oct. 17.