Jada Pinkett says she separated from Will Smith in 2016

Do you remember the 2022 Oscar awards? Oh, if you do then you are right on point and can follow this story. If you don’t, never mind, here is the brief. During the 2022 Academy Awards, actor Will Smith who later won the Best Actor award walked on stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock over a joke about the former’s wife Jada Pinkett.

Speaking to the audience while on stage to accept his award, Will Smith said, “I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people. I know to do what we do, you’ve got to be able to take abuse, you’ve got to be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business, you’ve got to be able to have people disrespecting you. You’ve got to smile, and you’ve got to pretend like that’s okay.”

Explaining further, he said, “I look like the crazy father, just like they said. I’m the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.” Then he added, “What Denzel said to me a few moments ago, he said, ‘At your highest moment, that’s when the devil comes for you,’ ” adding, “I want to be a vessel for love,” per the EW.

The woman who was mocked and he had to go out of his way to defend her is his wife, actress and television talk show host, Jada Pinkett. Well, in an upcoming NB primetime special with Hoda Kotb, the actress has revealed that six years prior to the infamous incident, she and her husband had been living separately. She said they did not make it public because they were still figuring out how to present it to people.

This came after the couple revealed in an episode of the “Red Talk Table” that Jada Pinkett was previously involved romantically with 31-year-old singer August Alsina. August had earlier broken the news about the incident claiming he sought the blessings of Will Smith and had “his blessing”.

“I actually sat down with Will and had a conversation,” Alsina told Angela Yee during an interview per CNN. “Due to the transformation from their marriage to (a) life partnership that they have spoken on several times, and not involving romanticism, he gave me his blessing.”

Will Smith said of the affair during the show, “We specifically never said anything…Coming to the table was like we just felt like it got to the point where you gotta say something.”

Jada Pinkett cleared the miscommunication from Alsina’s interview when he said Will Smith granted permission for the relationship by saying she was the only one capable of giving the go-ahead.

“The only person that can give permission in that particular circumstance is myself. I could actually see how he would perceive it as permission because we were separated amicably and I think he also wanted to make it clear that he’s also not a homewrecker. Which he’s not,” she explained.

Explaining what led to their separation, she said, “I think by the time we got to 2016, we were both just exhausted with trying. I think we were both kind of still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”

Despite their separation, Jada Pinkett said they have not legally divorced and that is because she “made a promise” to not divorce Will Smith for any reason. Accordingly, she has not been able to “break that promise”.