In reality, they live their lives separately. Actress Jada Pinkett Smith revealed on Wednesday that she has been separated from her husband Will Smith since 2016, while the couple has always presented themselves as united, husband and wife, in their public appearances.
The two artists attracted attention when the "Men in Black" actor slapped comedian Chris Rock on the Oscars stage because of a questionable joke about his wife's hair loss, a victim of alopecia. Banned from the Oscars ceremony for 10 years, after resigning from the Academy himself, Will Smith has publicly apologized to Chris Rock.
The two actors are still legally married
At the time of the controversy, the couple had already been living "completely separate lives" for years, at least since 2016, Jada Pinkett Smith told NBC, according to an excerpt of the interview, which aims to promote the actress' forthcoming memoir, titled "Worthy." However, they remain legally married: "It's not a divorce on paper, but it's a divorce in fact," journalist Hoda Kotb told him, a sentence to which she agreed.
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"I think in 2016 we were exhausted from trying. We're stuck in our fantasies of what the other person should be," Jada Pinkett Smith said. But that doesn't mean you want to get divorced: "I promised myself that you would never give yourself a reason to get divorced. That we'd get through it no matter what. And I haven't been able to break that promise. But we live separately. »
The actress also explained that she initially thought it was a joke when her husband hit Chris Rock and didn't understand the violence of his reaction. In her book, she explains that the couple attended the Oscars with their children, "as a family and not as husband and wife."
"We have a deep love for each other"
The couple had been dealing with persistent rumors of adultery or open marriage for years. "We have a deep love for each other and we're trying to figure out what that means to us," Jada Pinkett Smith explained in another interview with People magazine.
The two celebrities met in 1994 on the set of the series "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" when Will Smith was already married and the father of a child born in 1992. The couple married in 1997 and had two children, Jaden (born 1998) and Willow (born 2000). The two young adults have also followed in their parents' footsteps, since they are also in the artistic world, oscillating between cinema and music since their childhood.