Everything Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith Have Said About Their Marriage

Credit: Barry King/Getty Images

Everything Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith Have Said About Their Marriage

Built to make it! Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s 20-plus years of marriage have outlasted many Hollywood relationships. The couple seem as though they have figured out the magic formula to keeping the spark alive — even if they had to address rumors throughout their decades together. The actor met the Red Table Talk cohost when she auditioned to play his girlfriend on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Pinkett Smith did not get the role — Nia Long ended up playing the part — but the two later struck up a romantic relationship. Smith and Pinkett Smith tied the knot in December 1997. They went on to welcome son Jaden in July 1998 and daughter Willow in October 2000. Prior to his marriage to the actress, the Bad Boys for Life star wed Sheree Zampino in May 1992. The pair’s son, Trey, arrived in November 1992. Smith and the Hollywood Exes alum divorced in 1995. [jwplayer BNigVGcH-zhNYySv2] “Divorce was the worst thing in my adult life,” Smith admitted during a June 2020 episode of Red Table Talk. “Divorce was the ultimate failure for me. I’ve been hurt a lot in my adult life, but I don’t think anything touches the failure of getting divorced from my 2-year-old son’s mother.” The Oscar nominee’s split from Zampino seemingly informed his approach to marriage with Pinkett Smith, as they have repeatedly made clear divorce has never been an option for them. Meanwhile, the Maryland native addressed how important self-love is in a relationship too. “Without personal power/self love [sic], there is no foundation to build love for someone else because it’s the power needed to dissolve the ego which is our greatest obstacle to truly loving anyone,” she wrote on Instagram in February 2019. “Without self love [sic], all one has is their ego which gives a false sense of personal power through its brutal and unkind nature. The ego will never fail to strangle the love out of one’s heart if we allow it to take center stage in our relationships.” She continued: “Transferring our trust to our hearts from our egos is a painful process in learning HOW to love. BUT … through it all … when we finally get to the place where we can give and receive love in its most pure state … ego free … it is only ever … beauty.” In March 2022, Smith came under fire after he slapped Chris Rock across the face at the 94th annual Academy Awards after the comedian cracked a joke about Pinkett Smith's hair loss. (She has spoken extensively about battling alopecia.) While he faced repercussions for his actions — the King Richard star was subsequently banned from all Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences events for 10 years — his wife has stood by his side, breaking her silence in a June 2022 episode of Red Table Talk. “Until [Will and Chris reconcile], Will and I are continuing to do what we have done for the last 28 years, and that’s keep figuring out this thing called life together,” she said. Scroll through to see what Smith and Pinkett Smith have said about their marriage through the years. [podcast_block]

Credit: Barry King/Getty Images

Everything Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith Have Said About Their Marriage

Built to make it! Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s 20-plus years of marriage have outlasted many Hollywood relationships. The couple seem as though they have figured out the magic formula to keeping the spark alive — even if they had to address rumors throughout their decades together. The actor met the Red Table Talk cohost when she auditioned to play his girlfriend on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Pinkett Smith did not get the role — Nia Long ended up playing the part — but the two later struck up a romantic relationship. Smith and Pinkett Smith tied the knot in December 1997. They went on to welcome son Jaden in July 1998 and daughter Willow in October 2000. Prior to his marriage to the actress, the Bad Boys for Life star wed Sheree Zampino in May 1992. The pair’s son, Trey, arrived in November 1992. Smith and the Hollywood Exes alum divorced in 1995. [jwplayer BNigVGcH-zhNYySv2] “Divorce was the worst thing in my adult life,” Smith admitted during a June 2020 episode of Red Table Talk. “Divorce was the ultimate failure for me. I’ve been hurt a lot in my adult life, but I don’t think anything touches the failure of getting divorced from my 2-year-old son’s mother.” The Oscar nominee’s split from Zampino seemingly informed his approach to marriage with Pinkett Smith, as they have repeatedly made clear divorce has never been an option for them. Meanwhile, the Maryland native addressed how important self-love is in a relationship too. “Without personal power/self love [sic], there is no foundation to build love for someone else because it’s the power needed to dissolve the ego which is our greatest obstacle to truly loving anyone,” she wrote on Instagram in February 2019. “Without self love [sic], all one has is their ego which gives a false sense of personal power through its brutal and unkind nature. The ego will never fail to strangle the love out of one’s heart if we allow it to take center stage in our relationships.” She continued: “Transferring our trust to our hearts from our egos is a painful process in learning HOW to love. BUT … through it all … when we finally get to the place where we can give and receive love in its most pure state … ego free … it is only ever … beauty.” In March 2022, Smith came under fire after he slapped Chris Rock across the face at the 94th annual Academy Awards after the comedian cracked a joke about Pinkett Smith's hair loss. (She has spoken extensively about battling alopecia.) While he faced repercussions for his actions — the King Richard star was subsequently banned from all Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences events for 10 years — his wife has stood by his side, breaking her silence in a June 2022 episode of Red Table Talk. “Until [Will and Chris reconcile], Will and I are continuing to do what we have done for the last 28 years, and that’s keep figuring out this thing called life together,” she said. Scroll through to see what Smith and Pinkett Smith have said about their marriage through the years. [podcast_block]

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Setting the Record Straight

After a tabloid reported that the A-list couple were secretly separated after almost 14 years of marriage, the pair told Us Weekly in a joint statement in August 2011, ”Although we are reluctant to respond to these types of press reports, the rumors circulating about our relationship are completely false. We are still together, and our marriage is intact.”

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Twisted Words

The Girl’s Trip actress addressed the long-running rumors that she and her husband had an open marriage by making a controversial comment during an interview with HuffPost Live in April 2013 that confused the masses even more: "I think that people get that idea because Will and I are very relaxed with one another. But I've always told Will: ‘You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be OK.’”

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Marriage, Their Way

After Pinkett Smith’s choice of words only fueled speculation that the Smiths had an open marriage, she attempted to clarify her comments in a lengthy Facebook post later that month. "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," she wrote. “This does NOT mean we have an open relationship…this means we have a GROWN one."

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One Condition

The Gotham actress reiterated her commitment to her husband in June 2013, saying that there is nothing the Fresh Prince of Bel Air star could do to make her not love or abandon him — except, she explained, “If he did something bad to the kids — now we've got a problem."

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Hollywood Royalty

The rumor mill went into overdrive in August 2015, after false reports claimed that the Smiths were splitting up after 17 years of marriage. The “Summertime” rapper felt compelled to address them on Facebook in August 2015: "Under normal circumstances, I don't usually respond to foolishness (Because it's contagious). But, so many people have extended me their 'deepest condolences' that I figured – 'What the hell… I can be foolish, too!’ So, in the interest of redundant, repetitious, over & over-again-ness… Jada and I are… NOT GETTING A DIVORCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!" He concluded his statement by promising his fans that if he was to ever divorce his “Queen,” they would find out from him directly and not through the media. The Red Table Talk host later tweeted, “My King has spoken.”

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Counting the Ways

On Pinkett Smith’s birthday in September 2015, the Independence Day actor shared a throwback photo of the couple with a sweet note about their relationship on Facebook. "This was taken at your mom's house 20 years ago. That's a long time ago!!! I have sung happy birthday to you 20 times and I have bought you 19 birthday presents. (I was mad that one year). I have watched you blow out 693 candles (737 after tonite). I’ve told you 'I love you' at least 8,285 times,” Smith wrote. “And of the nearly 3.96 Billion women on the planet – there is only 1 that I want to spend the rest of my life with. Happy Birthday, my Love!"

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Keeping It Real

Two months later, the Bad Boys actor spoke candidly in a November 2015 interview with Entertainment Tonight about his relationship, revealing that “marriage was the most difficult, grueling, excruciating thing that we have ever taken on in our lives. And you know we’re just not quitters.” He also offered a piece of advice: “If there is a secret I would say it is that we never went into working on our relationship. We only ever worked on ourselves individually — and then presented ourselves to one another better than we were previously.”

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Still in Sync

The Set It Off actress appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in July 2017, where she addressed rumors that she and the Focus star were swingers. “The craziest rumor? That Will and I are swingers. That’s the craziest one. It’s constant,” she said, before joking, “And I’m like, ‘Yo, I wish!’” She also shared some insight into how the couple of two decades manage to keep it “hot”: “I really think that Will and I just have amazing chemistry on a lot of different levels. We love to laugh together, we love to learn together, and we just love each other. We just have a good time together. Yeah, I guess that’s the secret. Yeah, we just really like each other!”

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Lessons in Love

In January 2018, the Pursuit of Happiness star penned a touching tribute to his wife on their wedding anniversary, listing all of the things he learned throughout their marriage. “Love is Like Gardening... I have learned to focus on HELPING you to BLOSSOM into what YOU want to be (into what you were born to be)... Rather than Demanding that you become what my Fragile Ego needs you to be,” he wrote. “I’ve learned to take pleasure in Nourishing YOUR dreams... Rather than wrestling with you to Fulfill my Selfish Needs & Satiate My Insecurities.” “I have learned that Love is Listening. Love is Giving,” Smith continued before adding, “Happy Anniversary, My Queen! I am forever Devoted to Nurturing your Deepest Truth.”

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Wave ‘Em Off

In May 2018, Smith released a sneak peek of some new tracks he had been working on and in one, called “To the Clique,” he raps, “Stop the divorce rumors and mind your damn business.”

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Unbreakable

Pinkett Smith made it clear that she and the Bright actor were stronger than ever in June 2018. “Here’s the thing about Will and I — [we] are family. That is never going down,” Jada said while appearing on Sway’s Universe. “We are family. Take out all that whole marriage/ relationship crap, at the end of the day, Will and I are family. I am going to hold him down, doesn’t matter. All that relationship and what people think ideas of a husband, partner and all that, man, whatever. At the end of the day, that is a man that can rely on me for the rest of his life, period.”

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Just the Two of Us

The Hitch star revealed that he and the A Different World alum no longer say they’re “married anymore” during an interview on TIDAL’s Rap Radar podcast in July 2018. “We refer to ourselves as life partners, where you get into that space where you realize you are literally with somebody for the rest of your life. There’s no deal breakers. There’s nothing she could do — ever. Nothing that would break our relationship,” he said. “She has my support till death and it feels so good to get to that space.”

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Wise Words

Pinkett Smith spoke candidly about marriage and relationships in an emotional Instagram post in August 2018. “I’ve been watching a lot marriages dissolve around me,” she wrote alongside a happy family photo with husband Will Smith. “It’s been really painful. Marriages change. Sometimes they need to be reimagined and transformed. Sometimes they are simply over ... but either way, I pray that folks going thru this painful transition find the patience and the love within to not throw the 'babies' out with the bath water. #family”

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A Rough Patch

During an October 2018 appearance on his wife's Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk, Smith admitted that “there was a period" in their marriage where Pinkett Smith "woke up and cried 45 days straight." He added: “It was every morning. I think that’s the worst I’ve ever felt in our marriage. I was failing miserably.” 

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Rebuilding Their Relationship

Smith admitted during an October 2018 appearance on “Red Table Talk” that his wife didn’t want the life he built for them at one point during their marriage. “To have to let go of the picture, to have to let go of the dream was devastating. We essentially had to destroy our marriage,” he confessed. Despite their struggles, both Smith and Pinkett Smith said divorce was never an option for them during the episode.  

“Because I had been divorced before, I wasn’t getting divorced again. Divorce wasn’t an option,” the actor confessed. “I was devastated even worse than a divorce. We broke up within our marriage and got back together again. We had to rebuild with new rules and something way, completely different.”

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New Ideas

Pinkett Smith admitted during a February 2019 episode of Red Table Talk that she had “very hard expectations” before marrying Smith. “The way I ended up with Will, I had to change my whole perspective because — I want you to know something — he was not the dude,” she said. “But I had to change that. I can’t ask somebody to be for me what I am not willing to be for them. And what I realized in my partnership with Will was that I was asking him to be a lot of things for me that I wasn’t willing to do for me.”

She added that, in tough times, they shifted again. “There have been several occasions where you just had enough and you want to leave, and I just couldn’t or Will just couldn’t,” she recalled. “Because we knew this was what was meant to be, this partnership, no matter what the form is. We had to redefine it, reform it, change it.”

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Parental Intervention

“[My mom] wanted me to have a wedding. She wanted me to get married,” Pinkett Smith told Us in May 2019. “I didn’t want to! … She told me to get married and we better have a wedding.”

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Strangers

The Angel Has Fallen star revealed in April 2020 that she doesn’t “know Will at all,” noting that she was working on remedying the situation. “I feel like there’s a layer that you get to, right? Life gets busy, and you create these stories in your head. And then you hold onto these stories and that is your idea of your partner. But that’s not who your partner is,” she explained on Red Table Talk. “[I’m] having to dissolve all the stories and all of the ideas of Will that I have built around those stories. The thing that Will and I are learning to do is be friends. … You get into all these ideas of what intimate relationships are supposed to look like, what marriages are supposed to be.”

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Rumor Mill

In June 2020, Smith and Pinkett Smith once again faced rumors about their relationship. August Alsina claimed at the time that he had an affair with the Bad Moms actress for years — with her husband’s blessing. “Absolutely not true!” her rep told Page Six in response.

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Break Up and Make Up

The couple opened up about a past breakup between them during a July 2020 episode of Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk. After August Alsina claimed in June 2020 that he had an affair with Pinkett Smith years prior, she decided to address the rumors. According to Pinkett Smith, she met Alsina four and a half years earlier and they were just friends. Around the same time, she revealed that she and Smith had decided to split. “We decided that we were going to separate for a period of time,” Smith explained. “I really felt like we could be over.”

The actress said, “no, we were over,” which is what opened the door for the “different kind of entanglement” with Alsina. “It was a relationship,” she said of her brief romance with Alsina. “I was in a lot of pain, I was very broken. In the process of that relationship, I definitely realized that you can’t find happiness outside of yourself.” Pinkett Smith continued saying that the singer eventually broke off communication with her once she and Smith started to work on their relationship — and they haven’t spoken since.

“We have really gotten to that new place of unconditional love,” the Gotham alum said of her status with her husband now. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum admitted that “I wasn’t sure I was ever going to speak to you again,” before noting that marriage “ain’t for the weak at heart.” Pinkett Smith added: “I definitely believe that you and I never, ever, ever thought that we would make it back.” The two jokingly concluded: “We ride together, we die together, bad marriage for life.”

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Not the Only One

Smith got real about his ups and downs with the Daytime Emmy winner while discussing his memoir, Will, during a September 2021 interview. “Jada never believed in conventional marriage. … Jada had family members that had an unconventional relationship. So, she grew up in a way that was very different than how I grew up,” the actor told GQ’s Wesley Lowery. “There were significant endless discussions about, what is relational perfection? What is the perfect way to interact as a couple? And for the large part of our relationship, monogamy was what we chose, not thinking of monogamy as the only relational perfection.”

The Aladdin actor continued, “We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison. And I don’t suggest our road for anybody. I don’t suggest this road for anybody. But the experiences that the freedoms that we’ve given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love.”

Smith also commented on his wife’s public comments about her brief affair with Alsina.“The public has a narrative that is impenetrable,” he explained. “Once the public decides something, it’s difficult to impossible to dislodge the pictures and ideas and perceptions.”

The father of three didn’t expand further on Pinkett Smith’s past romance, but he did say she wasn’t the only one to stray in their relationship. “A viewer could have walked away thinking that Jada was the only one engaging in other sexual relationships, when that was not, Smith delicately explained to me, in fact the case,” Lowery wrote after speaking with the musician.

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Spicing Things Up

Pinkett Smith revealed that after decades of marriage, it takes work to keep the spark in the bedroom.

"It's hard," she shared during an episode of Red Table Talk in October 2021. "The thing Will and I talk about a lot is the journey. We started in this at a very young age, 22 years old ... I think you expect your partner to know [what you need], especially when it comes to sex. It's like, 'Well, if you love me, you should know. If you love me, you should read my mind.' That's a huge pitfall."

The Scream star still felt "uncomfortable" about expressing her desires to her husband, adding, "Tell me what you need, tell me what you want, and on top of it, I know that I have to be accountable to do the same. I really try [to do that]. It's uncomfortable, but it's deeply healthy. [Especially], I think, around sex, because it's something that we don't talk about a lot and there's so much fantasy around it."

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Early Sex Life

"We drank every day, we had sex multiple times every day for four straight months," Smith wrote in his memoir, Will, which came out in November 2021. "I started to wonder if this was a competition. Either way, as far as I was concerned, there were only two possibilities: I was going to satisfy this woman sexually or I was going to die trying."

The Grammy winner revealed during an Apple TV+ special the same month that the “early days were spectacular” with his wife. While the twosome have had their ups and downs, Smith explained that there has always been something wonderful about their dynamic.

"Me and Jada, to this day, if we start talking, it's four hours. It's four hours if we exchange a sentence. It's the center of why we've been able to sustain [our relationship] and why we are still together, not choking the life out of each other — the ability to work through issues," he said in the interview. "I've never met another person that I connect with in conversation more blissfully and productively than Jada."

The actor noted that although they never “officially separated” during their lowest point, the pair did pivot in their approach to their marriage, noting they are now “100 percent bound together and 100 percent free” in their relationship.

"What happened was we realized that it was a fantasy illusion that we could make each other happy," he explained. "We agreed that she had to make herself happy, and I had to make myself happy, and then we were going to present ourselves back to the relationship already happy, versus demanding the other person fill our empty cup."

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Addressing the Past

In March 2022, the King Richard star shut down speculation that they've ever accused each other of cheating in the past. "Never. There's never been infidelity in our marriage," he told Gayle King on CBS Sunday Morning, noting that the pair "talk about everything" with one another. "And we have never surprised one another with anything ever."

Will continued: "I have decided that chatter about my life can be of a benefit to people. I think that chatter is the first stage to having a real conversation and being able to truly explore if some of the things in your heart are loving, or poisonous."

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'Figuring Out This Thing Called Life'

In a June 2022 episode of her Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk, Pinkett Smith revealed that her "deepest hope" was for Will and Rock to "have an opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile."

She added, "Until then, Will and I are continuing to do what we have done for the last 28 years, and that’s keep figuring out this thing called life together."

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What Really Happened on Oscars’ Night

Smith released a lengthy video addressing the 2022 Oscars that July, noting that Rock hasn’t wanted to talk to him — and denying that Pinkett Smith encouraged him to slap the comedian.

“It’s like, you know, I made a choice on my own, from my own experiences, from my history with Chris. Jada had nothing to do with it. I’m sorry, babe,” Smith said. “I want to say sorry to my kids and my family for the heat that I brought on all of us.”