Once one of Hollywood’s most prized couples, actress and Red Table Talk star Jada Pinkett Smith revealed yesterday that she’s been separated from her Oscar-winning husband, Will Smith, since 2016.
The news has surprised many, but the couple is used to being in the headlines, from their non-traditional views on marriage to a secret relationship and of course, that slap. But an accurate timeline of their relationship seems hard to come by, so we’ve whipped one together with all the information you need.
1994: First meeting
The pair first met on the set of Smith’s iconic show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Pinkett auctioned for the part of his girlfriend – Lisa Wilkes – but Nia Long nabbed the role instead (apparently Pinkett was too short). At the time, Smith was married to Sheree Zampino – with whom he shared a son – while Jada was rumoured to be seeing late rap icon Tupac.
1995: A relationship blossoms
Following his divorce from Zampino (who you may recognise from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills), a year after meeting Smith and Pinkett began dating. In 2018, he opened up on Red Table Talk about the early days of their relationship: “I had a realisation I wasn’t with the person I was supposed to be with. I was sitting in a [bathroom] stall and I was crying and laughing uncontrollably, and I knew [Jada] was the woman I was supposed to be with.”
1997: Tying the knot
On New Year’s Eve 1997, the two married in a secret ceremony in Baltimore. Smith proposed a month earlier, and the next day Pinkett found out she was pregnant with their first child, Jaden.
But looking back, Jada was reluctant to wed Smith. “I was under so much pressure, you know, being a young actress, being young, and I was just, like, pregnant and I just didn’t know what to do. I never wanted to be married… We only got married because Gammy was crying,” she told her daughter on Red Table Talk in 2018.
1998: Jaden’s born
Pinkett gave birth to the couple’s son, Jaden, on July 8 1998. A rapper, singer and actor, Jaden has appeared alongside his father in The Pursuit of Happyness and starred in films including The Karate Kid.
2000: Willow’s born
Two years later, the couple welcomed their second child, Willow, on October 31 2000. Initially an actress, she’s gone on to have a successful musical career with albums like Lately I Feel Everything and Coping Mechanism.
2013: Rumours begin to swirl
After more than a decade of (what seemed like) wedded bliss and a string of career highlights (Pinkett with The Matrix Reloaded and Madagascar and Smith with Men In Black II and I Am Legend), Pinkett gave an interview to HuffPost Live. “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,” she said. “Because at the end of the day, Will is his own man. I’m here as his partner, but he is his own man.”
After many interpreted this as confirmation the two were in an open marriage, Pinkett clarified via Facebook: “Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship… this means we have GROWN one.”
2015: … And continue
The rumours didn’t end there, and even went up a notch, suggesting that divorce was on the horizon. “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!’’” Smith wrote on Facebook.
“So, in the interest of redundant, repetitious, over & over-again-ness… Jada and I are… NOT GETTING A DIVORCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
2016: Secret separation
We didn’t know it at the time, but in 2016 the couple decided to separate privately and live separate lives.
2018: Rejecting labels
Knowing what we know now, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that two years after secretly separating, the language Smith and Pinkett used to describe their relationship changed. “We don’t even say we’re married anymore. We refer to ourselves as life partners,” Smith said on a TIDAL podcast. “There’s nothing she could do – ever. Nothing that would break our relationship… It feels so good to get to that space where you’re not complaining, and worrying, and demanding that a person be a certain thing.”
2020: The August Alsina storm
In June 2020, the couple were in the headlines yet again when singer August Alsina revealed in an interview that he had a relationship with Pinkett in 2015. “I totally gave myself to that relationship for years of my life, and I truly and really, really, deeply love and have a ton of love for her,” the then 27-year-old said.
Weeks later, the couple dedicated an episode of Red Table Talk to discuss Pinkett’s “entanglement”, where they revealed the relationship developed when they were on a break. “I was done with yo ass. I was done with you,” said Smith of the relationship.
“I feel like there are a lot of couples that go through those periods. And a lot of couples that separate and think it’s over. One thing I’ll say about you and I is that there’s never been secrets,” she said. They ended the talk by jokingly reciting Smith’s motto from his film Bad Boys: “We ride together. We die together.”
2021: Opening up
In his memoir, Will, Smith detailed some of the problems he and Pinkett had experienced in their marriage, including “the brutal death of our romantic fantasies, the burning away of the idealistic illusion of the perfect marriage and the perfect family.”
“Neither of us wanted a divorce; we knew we loved each other, and some aspects of our union were magical,” Smith wrote. “But the structure of the life that we had established was strangling both of us.”
2022: THAT Oscars slap
Dun dun dun… We all know what happened here. But in case your memory is hazy, Smith took to the stage of the Oscars to smack comedian and host Chris Rock after he made a joke about Pinkett – who suffers from alopecia – and her hair. Although Pinkett hasn’t spoken to Rock since, she did reveal to People that he asked her out on a date amid her divorce rumours with Smith. “He called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’ And I was like, ’What do you mean?” she said.
2023: News breaks of their separation
In a sneak peek from her upcoming NBC News special ahead of the release of her memoir, Worthy, Pinkett finally made public that the couple had been separated for 7 years. “I think by the time we got to 2016, we were both just exhausted from trying,” she said. “I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”
However, according to Pinkett, the couple have “made a promise” that there would never be a reason divorce. “I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”