As she continues her promo tour for her new memoir ‘Worthy,’ Jada Pinkett Smith is now clarifying one of her biggest bombshells dropped during her publicity run. Jada previously claimed that she and her husband Will Smith had been separated for 7 years, since 2016. However, she is now revealing that that was the case up “until Oscars night!”
Earlier this month, we first learned the shocking details about Jada’s marriage with Will. Speaking exclusively with PEOPLE, the 52-year-old actress admitted that she and Will, 55, had been separated since 2016, nearly 20 years after they married in 1997. She said that she didn’t believe in divorce and that they mutually agreed to just separate as they figured things out.
She said they just weren’t “ready yet” to divorce, adding, “[We were] still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership … In regards to, how do we present that to people? We hadn’t figured that out.”
She added, “We’re still figuring it out. 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.”
RELATED: Jada Pinkett Smith Reveals She Was ‘Shocked’ By Will Smith Calling Her His “Wife” During Oscars Slap
She also revealed that they were in fact living separately when the 2022 Oscars came around, which is when Will slapped the hell out of Chris Rock and told him, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth,” after he joked about Jada’s alopecia. In a recent interview with NBC News, Jada told Hoda Kotb that she was “shocked” by Will calling her his “wife.”
She said he hadn’t referred to her as such for a while before that, as they had been separated going on 7 years. She said, “First of all, I’m really shocked, because mind you, I’m not there. We haven’t called each other husband and wife in a long time. I’m like, ‘What is going on right now? Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth?’ I’m really worried for Will because I don’t know what’s going on.”
Speaking more about the infamous Oscars slap, Jada admitted that she really thought it was a skit when it all happened, but realized Will was serious when he came back to his seat and uttered the words, “Are you ok?”
Later that night, Will won the Oscar for “Best Actor” and delivered an emotional five-minute speech. However, he later resigned from the Academy amid backlash, and the Academy followed up by banning Will from its membership and from attending events such as the Oscars for 10 years.
Now, a few weeks after revealing she was “shocked” at Will calling her his “wife” having been separated since 2016, Jada is clarifying that after that night at the Oscars, they no longer claim separated.
At a recent event to promote her memoir ‘Worthy,’ Jada told the crowd, “This is where the media wants to clamp on something and spin it all around, and I get it. Yes, we were separated for 7 years … UNTIL … Oscars night!”
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