By Stefan Ferrari
They kept it secret from the public for seven years: Hollywood star Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith have been separated since 2016 – and were therefore no longer a couple at the famous slap in the face at the Oscar Gala last year.
The 52-year-old actress revealed this on Wednesday on the US television channel NBC. However, she and her husband never made their separation public and did not divorce either.
Her husband and she had been living “totally separate lives” for years, Pinkett Smith told the television station. But she was “simply not ready” to make it public yet. “We were still trying to figure out how to be in a relationship between ourselves.” She and Will Smith didn’t know how to tell others about it either. The revelation comes as Pinkett Smith’s autobiography Worthy is soon to be released.
Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith at the 2022 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Photo: picture alliance / Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
There have been rumors about the state of the two stars’ marriage for years. Pinkett Smith himself spoke about a previous affair with singer August Alsina in 2020.
Smith and Pinkett Smith met in 1994 while filming the hit series “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and married in 1997. They have two children together, Jaden and Willow.
In “Worthy,” according to a previously published excerpt, Pinkett Smith also writes about the Oscar gala in March 2022, at which her husband hit comedian Chris Rock on stage, causing a scandal.
“We had led separate lives and were there as a family, not as husband and wife,” writes the 52-year-old. At first she thought the attack on Rock was a “skit”. When she realized that this wasn’t the case, she asked herself “why Will is so angry.”
Before the attack, Chris Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith, who suffered from hair loss. The scandal overshadowed the awards ceremony, where Will Smith was awarded the Oscar for best actor for his role in the film “King Richard”. The star of blockbusters such as “Independence Day” and “Men in Black” was subsequently banned from all Oscar ceremonies for ten years.