Will Smith. Jada Pinkett-Smith. Two names in the cannon of Hollywood that have endured their fair share of speculation and gossip about everything from their marriage, how they raise their children, past and/or alleged lovers and more. And with Jada’s forthcoming memoir Worthy set to hit shelves in less than a week, we felt it fitting to take a look back at the couple’s most important moments over the years.
So grab a snack and strap in, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.
OK, so first things first: the two technically first met back in 1994 when she auditioned for the role of Lisa on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. But as luck wouldn’t have it, she didn’t snag that role. What did happen however is that she got a gig on A Different World—which would be the show that Will would later see her on and realize his attraction.
The two began dating the following year—after Will and ex-wife Sheree Zampino decided to end their marriage—with Jada moving from Baltimore to California. They would later get married officially on New Year’s Eve in 1997.
Less than a year after the two wed, they welcomed their first baby boy together, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. Two years later, they’d welcome their second child, daughter Willow Camille Reign Smith, making them a family of five as Will had welcomed previous son Trey Smith with Zampino back in 1992.
Given the fact that Will’s star was shining and he’d just wed an attractive actress who had movement on her own as well, the two became Hollywood royalty almost instantly. Of course, them keeping their wedding a secret initially raised some eyebrows, but overall things were copacetic.
That was until a 2013 interview Jada dropped where she unintentionally(?) alluded to the fact that she and hubby Will may have been in an open marriage—something not widely discussed by celebs at the time and Black celebs in particular.
“I’ve always told Will, ‘You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay,’” she said in an interview with Huffpost Live at the time. “Because at the end of the day, Will is his own man. I’m here as his partner, but he is his own man. He has to decide who he wants to be, and that’s not for me to do for him. Or vice versa.”
She would later come back to clarify what she meant, writing in a lengthy post to her personal Facebook page: “Here is how I will change my statement...Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship...this means we have a GROWN one.”
Grown marriage or not, this would unfortunately be the tip of the iceberg.
Later that same year, Star Magazine released exclusive photos of Will and his Focus co-star Margot Robbie “getting cozy in a photo booth” with the headline “Will Smith Caught Cheating!” This consequently led to further fodder about the status of he and Jada’s marriage, despite both Margot coming out to deny anything happened between them
“There’s absolutely no truth to the ridiculous rumor in Star mag…” Margot wrote in a tweet at the time. Later adding: “It’s disappointing that goofing around on set could be taken so out of context.”
Will indirectly responded to the rumors on daughter Willow’s 13th birthday, captioning in a post: “Our baby is 13 today. No more little ones in the house…. I think I’m gonna get Jada pregnant tonight.”
Now, let’s jump forward to 2015-2016. Focus is now in theaters and folks are still giving the Smiths a side-eye. Unbeknownst to us, however, Jada was still apparently giving Will one as well and the two quietly decided to separate—not divorce. The emphasis here is on “QUIETLY” because apparently the rest of the world would be shocked to learn this news a few years later.
Cut to 2018, two years before a worldwide pandemic would have us all shut inside, Jada, her daughter Willow and Jada’s mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris join forces with Facebook Watch to create their series, Red Table Talk.
Touted as the “talk show that listens,” the show often featured the three women and various guests engaged in candid sometimes difficult conversations about everything from childhood trauma, mental health issues, life, love and marriage—the latter two topics would prove to be one of the biggest draws to their platform in 2020.
In the first season of RTT, Jada revealed her struggle with alopecia, a hair loss disorder that affects nearly 6.8 million people. She would later go completely bald in 2021—but we can’t jump that far ahead without mentioning...
Alright, now let’s get to the good (is it really?) stuff: Jada’s “entanglement” with August Alsina.
Enter 2020, Jada and Will are sitting together for an episode of her new, popular Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk. Remember that quiet separation we talked about earlier? Well, in this particular episode Jada revealed that she and singer/rapper August Alsina were involved in an “entanglement” during that time, as previously reported by The Root:
Jada recalled that when she met August approximately four-and-a-half years ago, they developed a very close friendship, which ultimately evolved into something more. Jada and Will then confirmed that they were separated at the time.
“We were over,” Jada said.
“We were separated, amicably,” Will reinforced.
Jada then went on to say that she was in an “entanglement” with August, who she commonly referred to as “Aug.” After some prodding from Will, though, Jada used the word “relationship.” Jada admitted that August was “really, really sick” at the time that they met and she believed that her relationship with him may have been a situation where one tries to fix their own childhood trauma by attempting to fix someone else’s.
Though Jada didn’t view the entanglement as a transgression in their marriage (to be clear, Will did though)—the couple ultimately shared that the situation made them realize that they’d always have each other’s back no matter what.
“We ride together, we die together, bad marriage for life!” the two joked in the episode, using a Bad Boys reference.
Cut to Fall 2021 and the release of Will Smith’s memoir—aptly titled Will—is impending. As previously reported by The Root, the topics in the extremely telling book ranged from his jealousy of Tupac, first marriage to Zampino, early career as the Fresh Prince, his historic Grammy win, tumultuous with his father, relationship dynamic with Jada, thoughts on Black Lives Matter and more.
The public arguably learned waaaayyy more about Will than they expected (as one might expect when it comes to a memoir,) but while the reception was mixed, the book still received an average four out of five stars—much like most of Smith’s filmography over the years. But it would be his actions on the Oscars stage that would prove to be his most popular (???) yet.
Ahhh, “the slap.” Where do should I even begin? I guess we’ll start with the basics:
Who: Chris Rock and Will Smith (and Jada, by extension).
What: A literal slap across the face (Chris’ face to be exact) by Will.
When: At the 2022 Oscars (yes, hard to believe it’s only been a year. It feels like so long ago.)
Where: Onstage as Chris was getting ready to announce the nominees and winner of Best Documentary Feature.
Why: That still remains the biggest—and arguably most important—question of all to this day. As we all know by now, the slap happened after Chris made a joke (or jab depending on how you look at it) about Jada’s bald head. Which given her alopecia diagnosis, which some say Rock wasn’t aware of, and the couple and Rock’s err, rocky history—presumably ticked hubby Will off.
Even after Will apologized and tried to contextualize the moment by saying: “Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally,” folks still weren’t ready to welcome Smith back with open arms.
And by “people” I mean both Chris and Hollywood at-large.
Less than a week after the now infamous incident, Smith resigned from the Motion Picture Academy. A week later, the Academy officially banned Smith from attending “any Academy events or programs, in person or virtually, including but not limited to the Academy Awards” in addition to accepting his resignation from the prestigious membership.
Folks like Oscars show producer Will Packer, Denzel Washington, Wanda Sykes, Zoe Kravitz, Trevor Noah and more eventually chimed in to give their respective takes on the matter.
Will also issued another surprise apology video later in July, which Chris—who’d remained largely silent about the incident, save for a few words here and there during his comedy tour stops—politely responded: “fuck your hostage video.”
Meanwhile the rest of Hollywood is giving the King Richard star the cold shoulder and reacting in a variety of different ways.
Less than two months after Will posted the apology video, he emerged back on social media as his usual goofy, self, poking fun at the fact that he was returning back into to social sphere at a time where he was unsure that he should.
As if the Smith family needed more fodder for conversation, Jada announced later that fall that she’d be releasing a “no-holds-barred” memoir set to chronicle “lessons learned in the course of a difficult but riveting journey—a rollercoaster ride from the depths of suicidal depression to the heights of personal rediscovery and the celebration of authentic feminine power,” according to a press release provided to The Root.
Let’s jump to December 2022 where Will is present for the release of his new film, Emancipation. But the question on everyone’s mind leading up to its release was whether or not his break from social media and now big film—which revolved around an important story of a slave turned freed man—would be enough to get Hollywood and audiences to...turn the other cheek. Sorry.
“I completely understand—if someone is not ready, I would absolutely respect that and allow them their space to not be ready,” Smith explained in an interview with Variety. “My deepest concern is my team–Antoine [Fuqua, director] has done what I think is the greatest work of his entire career. The people on this team have done some of the best work of their entire careers, and my deepest hope is that my actions don’t penalize my team. At this point, that’s what I’m working for.”
While the film didn’t generate any awards buzz, it was enough to keep folks talking about Will for something other than the slap for a change.
After Will’s Emancipation of sorts, the news of Red Table Talk’s cancellation goes public in the spring of 2023. Why? Meta’s shuttering of their Facebook Watch original programming—which sucks because now we’ll never get to see Jada bring herself, her husband or Chris Rock himself to the table for a discussion. (Not that that had a likely chance of happening anyhow, but now it’ll definitely NEVER happen,)
Remember how I told you Chris had been virtually silent about the slap? Well that’s because he was saving all his commentary for his Netflix special, Selective Outrage.
Making history as the first comedian to ever perform live on Netflix, the comedian definitely took the time to address the Smiths—both of them, not just Will, among other topics.
The general consensus online? The special was just OK. Some fans thought he could’ve gone harder. Some thought he went too far. Some, like our senior writer Candace McDuffie felt the only joke in the whole special was Chris himself—and that he still deserved to be slapped. But I digress.
And if you’re wondering whether or not Will has seen the special? The short answer is: no.
On Wednesday, Jada dropped a shocking (or maybe not so much) revelation from her upcoming memoir, Worthy, slated to hit bookshelves on Oct. 17.
In an interview for People magazine’s cover issue, Jada revealed that she and Will had been separated since 2016—I told y’all it was quiet! The revelation took social media by storm with many reveling in the fact that they were mum about whether or not they officially got back together (I mean technically, they still are together. Separated and divorced aren’t the same thing even though they’re closely related) all this time. Others felt the news was disingenuous seeing as how they built their platform on transparency but still were tight-lipped on the specific dynamic of their relationship.
