Jada Pinkett Smith reveals she and Will Smith have lived separately since 2016

Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, one of Hollywood’s most popular couples, have been living separate lives for years, the actor revealed in an excerpt of her memoir and in a clip from a Today interview with Hoda Kotb.

The actress makes the disclosure in her new book, Worthy, and spoke about the status of her relationship in a segment from an interview with Hoda Kotb that aired on Wednesday’s Today show. She noted that the couple isn’t legally divorced and doesn’t want to pursue that step.

Hoda asks Pinkett Smith for details about the marriage revelation in her memoir, which she says “surprised her the most” out of the book’s “many surprising things.”

However, as Pinkett Smith confirmed to Kotb, the separation was essentially a “divorce” as she and Smith are no longer romantically together.

“How do we present that to people?” she told Kotb. “We hadn’t figured that out.”

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According to Pinkett Smith, she and Smith have been separated and have lived “completely separate lives” since 2016, nearly 20 years after they married in 1997.

Their marriage has come under scrutiny during the period she says they have been apart.

In July 2020, singer August Alsina revealed that he had been romantically involved with Pinkett Smith, something she confirmed during an episode with her husband on “Red Table Talk.”

During the 2022 Academy Awards, Smith stormed the stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock after he made a joke about Pinkett Smith being bald. She suffers from alopecia, which has caused her hair loss.

In a new interview with People, Pinkett Smith opened up about the incident, which she said, like many other people, she initially thought was a comedic bit between the two men.

“I thought, ‘This is a skit.’ I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him,’” she recalled. “It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn’t a skit.”

She told the publication that as soon as they were alone she asked Smith, “Are you okay?”

Pinkett Smith told Kotb during their interview that the marriage fractured because of “a lot of things.”