Jada Pinkett Smith Says She and Will Smith Have Been Separated for Last Seven Years

It's been nearly two years since the now infamous moment at the Academy Awards in 2022 when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, and now Jada Pinkett Smith is finally speaking out about the incident and revealing some major information about her marriage in the process. In an interview with People, Smith reveals that she and Will have been separated for seven years at this point — and had been separated for six years at the time of the Oscars in 2022.

"We're still figuring it out," Smith said of her marriage. "We've been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us."

She further explained to Today (via Variety) that she thinks their marriage ran into issues because she and Will were "exhausted with trying" after a certain point.

"I think by the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying," Smith said. "I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be."

She added, "I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through whatever. And I just haven't been able to break that promise… We live separately."

Jada Pinkett Smith Says She Thought the Oscars Slap Was a Skit

As for the incident at the 2022 Oscars, Smith said that she initially thought it was all part of a skit, only realizing that it wasn't until Will came back to sit down that she realized otherwise.

"I thought, 'This is a skit,'" Smith said. "I was like, 'There's no way that Will hit him.' It wasn't until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn't a skit."

"I'm going to be by his side," she added. "But also allow him to have to figure this out for himself."

Chris Rock Reportedly Went to Counseling Following the Oscar Slap

Last month, Leslie Jones revealed that Rock ended up going to counseling in the wake of the Oscars incident, explaining that she was "infuriated" by Will Smith's actions at the award ceremony.

"You don't know that I was going to jump in my car and roll up there. I was so f-ing mad on so many levels," Jones told the magazine in a recent chat. "For a long a-- time I was just mad. Chris Rock did a f-ing joke. I know Will, too... I was like, you couldn't handle that s--t afterwards. This is the Oscars. The whole world is watching."

Jones went on to explain just how damaging the slap was to Rock's psyche, suggesting her friend was forced to seek help after.

"That s--t was humiliating. It really affected him. People need to understand his daughters, his parents, saw that. He had to go to counseling with his daughters," the SNL alumnus added. "Everybody got pissed off about him doing a special. That's what comedians do. Instead of us going crazy we f---ing go talk about it on the f---ing stage. Thank God we've got the stage."

Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk Series Was Cancelled by Meta Earlier This Year

Back in April, Meta cancelled Smith's hit talk show, Red Table Talk. Hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith, plus her daughter Willow Smith, and her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, the series began in May of 2018 and ran for over 120 episodes on the social media platform.  Red Table Talk was the last original Facebook Watch TV series. It had previously been nominated for Outstanding Talk Show/Informative at the Daytime Emmy Awards in 2019 and actually won the award in 2021. Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris were all nominated for Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host as well.

Red Table Talk was largely a panel discussion series, built around the premise that the three generations of women from the same family would have different perspectives on a subject. The series notably tackled an array of subjects ranging from episodes like "Does Porn Ruin Relationships?" to "Suicide Attempt Survivors Speak Out." Jada Pinkett Smith also notably used the platform of the series to confirm an "entanglement" while she and Will Smith were separated. There was also a major episode wherein Leah Remini reunited with Jada and Will to discuss her public accusations that the couple are members of the Church of Scientology. 

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