When Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith were the subject of breakup rumors, Chris Rock allegedly tried to ask her out.
“I think every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce. And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce,” Pinkett Smith, 52, told People in an interview published on Wednesday, October 11. “So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’”
Pinkett Smith noted that she was confused as to why Rock, 58, was trying to date her considering she was married to Smith, 55.
“He was like, ‘Well, aren’t you and Will getting a divorce?’ I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors,’” she told the outlet. “He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.”
Rock has not publicly responded to Pinkett Smith’s claims, which according to People, will be further detailed in her upcoming Worthy memoir.
Pinkett Smith and the King Richard star started dating in 1995, ultimately getting married two years later. Smith — who coparents son Trey, 30, with ex-wife Sheree Zampino — and Pinkett Smith share son Jaden, 25, and daughter Willow, 22.
While Pinkett Smith did not disclose when Rock tried to take her out on a date, she did separate from Smith in 2016.
“I think, by the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying,” she told Today on Wednesday. “I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”
Pinkett Smith and Smith have yet to file for divorce but still live apart. “I think just not being ready yet,” she added on Today. “Still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership, right, and in regards to how do we present that to people, you know? And we hadn’t figured that out.”
Amid Pinkett Smith and Smith’s separation, they came face to face with Rock again at the Academy Awards last year. Rock made a joke about Pinkett’s shaved head, which is a result of her alopecia battle, while presenting at the Oscars in March 2022.
Smith, who implored Rock to keep Pinkett Smith’s name “out [his] f—king mouth,” then walked up on the stage and smacked Rock. While Pinkett Smith was initially floored by the now-infamous slap, Smith has since apologized. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also banned Smith from their events for 10 years.
“It was in the heat of the moment and it was him overreacting. He knows that, she knows that. They’re in agreement that he overreacted,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in April 2022, noting Pinkett Smith “wishes” her spouse hadn’t hit Rock.
The insider added at the time: “She’s not one of these women that needs protecting. He didn’t need to do what he did, she didn’t need protecting. She’s not a wallflower. She’s a strong woman, an opinionated woman and she can fight her own battles. But she will stand by him.”
