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Will Smith has finally addressed Jada Pinkett Smith’s many claims about her partner and marriage.
In recent years, Pinkett Smith, 52, has shared several revelations about her life behind closed doors with the Oscar-winning King Richard actor, 55.
The latest detail mentioned in Matrix Revolutions actor Pinkett Smith’s new memoir is the fact that she has been “separated” from Smith for seven years.
The actress revealed this, saying she was “shocked” that Smith called her his “wife” while supporting her against a joke from Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, which infamously ended with Smith punching Rock on stage face hit.
In a separate interview with People to promote her upcoming memoir, Pinkett Smith revealed that while the two are not legally divorced, they have been living separately since 2016.
Smith has now once again endorsed Pinkett Smith, this time in an official statement shared with The New York Times, which interviewed the latter.
The outlet notes that Smith said his wife’s memoir, “Worthy,” “kind of woken him up” and that he now realizes that she is “more resilient, smarter and more compassionate than he thought.”
He added: “When you’ve been with someone for more than half your life, a kind of emotional blindness sets in and you can all too easily lose your sensitivity to that person’s hidden nuances and subtle beauties.”
Smith married Jada Pinkett in 1997 after divorcing actress Sheree Zampino two years earlier. They first met after the latter failed an audition for a role as the girlfriend of Smith’s character in the 1990s series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
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Rumors that the couple were in an open relationship began after Pinkett Smith told The Huffington Post in 2013, “Will is his own man. I’m here as his partner, but he’s his own man.”
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith photographed in 2015
(Getty Images)
In a conversation with Howard Stern in 2015, she explained her quotes. “At the end of the day, I’m not here to be anyone’s watcher,” she said. “I trust Will to be a man of integrity. So he has all the freedom in the world.”
However, after rumors continued to swirl about the couple’s relationship, Pinkett Smith wrote on her Facebook page: “Will and I can BOTH do WHATEVER THEY want because we TRUST each other. This does NOT mean that we have an open relationship, but that we have an ADULT relationship.”
In 2020, singer August Alsina claimed that Smith gave him “his blessing” to have a relationship with Pinkett Smith, who later clarified that she had an “entanglement” with Alsina while she and her husband were “amicably separated.”
Smith and Pinkett Smith have two children together: Jaden Smith – born in 1998 – and daughter Willow, born in 2000.
Worthy will be released on Tuesday (October 17).