Jada Pinkett Smith shared that Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards helped re-affirm her commitment to her husband.
The 52-year-old Matrix star — who revealed last week that she and Will, 55, secretly separated seven years ago but are now ‘working’ on their marriage — reflected on the tense moment in a conversation with Vanity Fair on Monday.
‘When I was sitting at the Oscars, it clicked in. As soon as I was like, “Oh snap, you hit Chris?”‘ Jada stated.
‘I was like, I’m riding with you. I didn’t come into this place as your wife, but I’m leaving here as your wife because we got a storm we’re going to have to deal with together. I am not gonna leave your side.’
The star admitted earlier this week that she was shocked Will referred to her as his ‘wife’ as they had been separated for six years at the time of the 94th Academy Awards.
Interesting: Jada Pinkett Smith, 52, shared that Will Smith, 55, slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards helped re-affirm her commitment to her husband; pictured at the Oscars
Explosive: During Smith’s outburst he infamously leapt onto the stage and assaulted Chris, 58, over a joke he made about Jada’s hair, fuming ‘keep my wife’s name out of your f*****g mouth’
During Smith’s explosive outburst he infamously leapt onto the stage and assaulted Chris over a joke he made about Jada’s hair.
He stormed the stage and slapped the comedian after fuming ‘keep my wife’s name out of your f*****g mouth’ – before going on to win Best Actor for his role in King Richard that night.
Unpacking the notorious Oscars moment in an interview with Hoda Kotb on the Today show earlier this week, Jada confessed: ‘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?’
Jada made the new revelations during an in-person conversation, in partnership with CAA and Vanity Fair, at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York City.
The actress said she and Will did ‘really deep work together’ following the slap.
She also discussed their seven-year-separation, saying the pair were ‘exhausted’ from ‘pulling at each other’ and ‘power struggles’ in 2016, and that she had to ‘learn how to love myself’ before she could ‘identify what love looked like coming from somebody else.’
Jada added that she had to learn she wasn’t ‘entitled’ to Will.
During the conversation the mother-of-two revealed that Will and their children Jaden, 25, Willow, 22, and Will’s older son Trey, 30, gave her permission to share anything about their lives in her upcoming memoir, Worthy, set to be released on Tuesday.
The star said that Will told her: ‘I will be comfortable with whatever you have to share, I trust you.’
Jada also revealed that he had read the book before she handed it off to her editor and ‘didn’t change a word.’
Recommitted: ‘I was like, I’m riding with you. I didn’t come into this place as your wife, but I’m leaving here as your wife because we got a storm we’re going to have to deal with together,’ she told Vanity Fair; seen 2022
Shocked: The star said earlier this week that she was shocked Will referred to her as his ‘wife’ as they had been separated for six years at the time of the 94th Academy Awards; seen 2022
Married but separated: Jada (seen with Will in 2023 – seven years after they separated) said she considered a legal divorce but could never go through with it
The actress has been busy dropping bombshells during her promotional tour for her upcoming memoir.
Jada admitted that she and Will, who tied the knot in 1997, are still trying to ‘figure out’ what the future of their marriage looks like.
She also claimed Rock once asked her out on a date when divorce rumors about her and Will were swirling.
‘I think every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce,’ she said. ‘And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce.
‘So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out,” she recalled. ‘And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He was like, ‘Well, aren’t you and Will getting a divorce?’ I was like, ‘No, Chris, those are just rumors.’
‘He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.’
She also shared that they haven’t spoken since the infamous slap. ‘[Do I have] any desire to talk to Chris? Here’s my desire: I just hope that all the misunderstanding around this can be cleared up and that there can be peace,’ she told People.
Following her latest set of revelations, fans took to social media to express their exhaustion. ‘Enough!’ one meme featuring Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Adams read.
Another similar meme saw Tom Hiddleston as his Marvel character Loki, yelling out the same thing.
‘Make it stop. Who is doing this to us?’ someone else questioned on Twitter.
Tired fans: Following her latest set of revelations, fans took to social media to express their exhaustion. ‘Enough!’ one meme featuring Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Adams read
Over it: Another similar meme saw Tom Hiddleston as his Marvel character Loki, yelling out the same thing
Bombshell after bombshell: The actress has been busy dropping bombshells during her promotional tour for her upcoming memoir
Stop: ‘Make it stop. Who is doing this to us?’ someone else questioned on Twitter
Matrix fans: ‘I can’t even watch the Matrix anymore,’ another complained, in reference to the Action/Sci-fi franchise Jada starred in alongside Keanu Reeves
Simulation: ‘We are living in a simulation,’ someone else chimed in
‘I can’t even watch the Matrix anymore,’ another complained, in reference to the Action/Sci-fi franchise Jada starred in alongside Keanu Reeves.
‘We are living in a simulation,’ someone else chimed in.
In a new interview the actress has retracted the explosive revelation that she and Will are separated, insisting the couple are in fact ‘working very hard’ at bringing their relationship ‘back to a life partnership’ and are ‘concentrating on healing’.
In a new interview with Today, Jada – who admitted in 2020 that she’d had an affair with singer August Alsina – claimed that people initially ‘missed’ that she was trying to explain that she and Will had not called it quits.
It comes just days after Jada shocked the world by sharing that the pair had been living ‘completely separate lives’ as of 2016 because they were ‘exhausted with trying’ to repair their union – and were living apart when Will seemingly defended her honor by slapping Rock at the Oscars last year.
Clarifying her comments on the Today show on Monday, ahead of the release of her new memoir, Worthy, Jada said: ‘We are working very hard at bringing our relationship, yes, bringing our relationship back together… Back to a life partnership, yes.
‘Husband-wife marriage for me, for my healing process. I came into that with very specific ideas, right? Very specific ideas that were blocks. To me just seeing Will to who he is. He can’t be this perfect idealized husband.
‘I have to be able to accept him for the human he is. He accepts me for the human that I am, and we want to love each other there. We really have been working hard.’
Jada’s clarification shocked host Hoda Kotb, who replied in disbelief: ‘Oh! Okay. Well, I didn’t know that.’
‘That’s the point I was trying to tell you,’ the actress continued. ‘You totally missed that. That’s the whole thing.’
Hoda asked: ‘There might not be a divorce in theory anymore?’
The Girls Trip actress replied: ‘Yeah. No. We really have been working hard.’
New revelations: Her memoir, Worthy, will be published on Tuesday, October 17
‘So, wait,’ a confused Hoda replied. ‘Just so I’m 100 per cent sure. You were divorced not on paper.’
‘Right,’ Jada said.
Speaking to Hoda in a pre-recorded interview on the program last week, Jada had explained why her marriage to Will broke down.
‘By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying,’ she said. ‘I think we were both still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.
‘I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through whatever. And I just haven’t been able to break that promise.’
‘But you still live separately?’ Hoda probed, with Jada confirming: ‘We live separately’.
Jada and Will married in 1997 and have previously addressed separations and marital troubles in the past, but continued to repeatedly gush about their romance in interviews and online.
