Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith could have joined this year's long list of celebrity couples who are getting divorced. But instead, they joined a much more confusing category.
The celebrity couple refuse to divorce but have been separated for seven years, and they are now ready to talk about it.
It all began when Jada shared in her upcoming memoir Worthy that despite the Smiths being considered the most solid marriage in Hollywood, they're actually separated. In fact, they've been broken up since 2016.
Among the other details, which have all created flurries of headlines in very quick succession, were Jada claiming she immediately knew she was pregnant (presumably with their son, Jaden) after sex with Will in 1997.
The feeling was like being "inside a bank vault," she said.
"There's a lock that looks like a big round steering wheel. When you turn it, it locks with a 'CLICK'. That's what it felt like in my womb."
She also shared details of her first kiss with Tupac, their long-time friendship, how she knew of his alopecia, and how they once recorded a music video together, lip-syncing to the Fresh Prince (with whom she "would become, um, very well acquainted").
Her revelations also mean that we now know that when Will shouted during Chris Rock's Oscars speech to keep his "wife's name out of your f**king mouth," the couple, who share children Jaden and Willow, were technically not totally husband and wife.
They weren't even living together. In an interview with The New York Times, Jada revealed that for her 50th birthday, she "bought her own place, moving out of their Calabasas compound."
Jada reflected on the Oscars moment on the Today show on NBC. "First of all, I’m really shocked, because mind you, I’m not there. We haven’t called each other husband and wife in a long time," Jada told presenter Hoda Kotb. "I’m like, 'What is going on right now? Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth?' I’m really worried for Will because I don’t know what’s going on."
As we all know, Will slapped Chris during the segment, resulting in the Academy Awards banning Smith from attending the Oscars for 10 years.
But ultimately, Jada wanted to stand by Will. "Even though we hadn’t been calling each other husband and wife in a long time, I said, 'I’m his wife now. We in this.' That’s just who I am. That’s the gift I have to offer, like, 'Hey, I’m riding with you'," she told the NYT.
"I knew in my heart that he needed me by his side more than ever."
Jada confirmed that she and Will are not in an open marriage or divorced, instead, they're in "a relationship of transparency."
"We wanted to create a family we never had, and we did that. And we enjoy our family. For us, our marriage is like a cornerstone of that for now. Who knows in 10 years," she told the NYT.
"We’ve tried everything to get away from each other, and we just don’t."
As Jada appeared on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, Shetty read a letter that Will wrote to his wife in response to the memoir. "I applaud and honour you," the actor wrote. "If I had read this book 30 years ago, I definitely would have hugged you more. I’ll start now."
The letter concluded with the Oscar-winner saying, "I love you endlessly. Now go get some Merlot and take a rest."
(Jada has been sober for 20 years, a fact that Will is obviously mocking.)
"That’s why I can’t divorce that joker," Jada said in response.
She went on to say that her memoir "woke him up," adding that she was "more resilient, clever and compassionate" than he’d understood.
"When you’ve been with someone for more than half your life, a sort of emotional blindness sets in," she wrote. "And you can all too easily lose your sensitivity to their hidden nuances and subtle beauties."
I mean, that's nice? But why are we hearing about all this?
Listen to The Spill hosts discuss all the Jada and Will drama. Post continues after podcast.
This isn't the first time the Smiths have overshared either.
In 2020, Jada admitted to having an affair with then-23-year-old August Alsina. On an episode of her Facebook show Red Table Talk, she invited Will on to discuss her infidelity. "We ride together, we die together, bad marriage for life," they joked in the episode.
Jada's recent revelations of her and Will's seven-year separation have spurred on a series of memes circulating online, with people joking 'Jada Pinkett Smith confirms she's never actually met Will Smith.'
The public's jump from shock to mockery is to be expected. To be perfectly frank, sometimes celebrities simply share too much information.
It happened in the case of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who earlier this year appeared to be everywhere and doing everything at once.
Off the back of Netflix special Harry & Meghan in December 2022 and then Harry's biography Spare in January 2023, the couple went from rarely sharing a single snippet of their inner private life or thoughts to suddenly saying too much.
The response from the public was immediate. Do and say less, royals!
In the shadow of Will's Oscars slap, this could have been Jada's chance to make a comeback. Jada is, of course, the victim in all this; the one that was insulted by Rock; who sat awkwardly by as Will went too far.
But Jada and Will oversharing the intimate details of this relationship has derailed the entire comeback.
Feature image: Getty.
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