In it for the long haul! Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have one of the longest lasting marriages in Hollywood, but they have weathered numerous ups and downs in the years since they tied the knot.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum met the actress in 1994, but the two did not begin dating until the following year. They married on New Year’s Eve in 1997. Nearly 20 years later, however, the Girls Trip star admitted that she regretted beginning her relationship with Will while he was still married to his ex-wife, Sheree Zampino.
“Because I did not understand marriage, I did not understand divorce,” she said during the 2018 premiere episode of Red Table Talk, which featured Zampino as a guest. “I probably should have fell back.”
Despite their rocky beginnings, the two women bonded after Jada met Trey, Zampino’s son with Will. “She was my entry point to motherhood,” the Baltimore native explained. “I was co-mothering with her. At that particular time, before [having a blended family] was popular, before it was even an idea, we were trying to create something that we had never experienced.”
In July 1998, Will and Jada welcomed son Jaden. Their daughter, Willow, followed in 2000.
While the couple became a model for marriage among celebrities, they dealt with drama behind the scenes, frequently shooting down divorce rumors and even going so far as to split up for a time.
“I was done with your ass. I was done with you,” Will admitted with a laugh during a July 2020 episode of Red Table Talk revealing they had separated in 2015. “Marriages have that though. We decided that we were going to separate for a period of time and you go figure out how to make yourself happy and I’ll try to figure out how to make myself happy. I really felt like we could be over.”
The pair stopped talking at the time, and Jada entered into a brief “entanglement” with August Alsina. The Hitch star and the Hawthorne alum eventually reconciled though.
Despite their rocky road, the duo previously insisted that they did not consider divorcing. “Because I had been divorced before, I wasn’t getting divorced again. Divorce wasn’t an option,” the Philadelphia native stressed on Red Table Talk in October 2018. “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.”
At the conclusion of their July 2020 discussion about their marriage, they reiterated their stance on their unbreakable relationship. “We ride together. We die together. Bad marriage for life,” they said, referencing a quote from Will’s Bad Boys film series.
Scroll down to revisit the highs and lows of the Smiths’ decades-long marriage.
Will and Jada met when she auditioned to play his girlfriend on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. She did not get the part, and he was married to Sheree Zampino — with whom he shares son Trey — at the time. “I had a realization I wasn’t with the person I was supposed to be with,” he recalled on Red Table Talk in 2018. “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.”
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The Men in Black star and the Gotham alum began dating in 1995 following his divorce from Zampino. He asked Jada if she was “seeing anyone” and when she told him she wasn’t, he made his move. “Cool. You’re seeing me now,” he replied.
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Will proposed to Jada in November 1997, and they tied the knot one month later. The top-secret wedding took place at a hotel in her native Baltimore.
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The couple’s son, Jaden, arrived in July 1998. He later starred in multiple films with his father — including The Pursuit of Happyness and After Earth.
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Will and Jada welcomed daughter Willow in October 2000. She pursued music like the rest of her family and cohosts Red Table Talk with her mom.
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The Girls Trip actress made waves in April 2013 when she addressed rumors that she and Will have an open relationship. “I think that people get that idea because Will and I are very relaxed with one another,” she told HuffPost Live. “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.’”
Jada later denied on several occasions that the two are swingers.
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Split speculation plagued the pair repeatedly through the years, but the Grammy winner had enough 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!’” he wrote via Facebook. “So, in the interest of redundant, repetitious, over & over-again-ness… Jada and I are… NOT GETTING A DIVORCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
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Will surprised fans in July 2018 when he revealed on TIDAL’s “Rap Radar” podcast that he and Jada do not say they are “married anymore.” The Oscar nominee elaborated that they “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. She has my support till death and it feels so good to get to that space.”
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August Alsina claimed in June 2020 that he had an affair with Jada, for which Will gave his blessing. However, the A Different World alum retorted in July 2020 that she got into an “entanglement” with the rapper without her husband’s blessing during a period when they were separated in 2015. The Smiths hashed out the debacle during an episode of Red Table Talk, revealing that they ultimately reconciled after starting to communicate again. She noted that the pair have "really gotten to that new place of unconditional love."
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After shaving her head in July, the Gotham alum said that her husband was fully on board with the new look. “He loves it," she told Tiffany Haddish during a September episode of Red Table Talk, adding that Will even texted a photo of his wife to Willow. “He was like, ‘Stunning.'"
Jada said she'd decided to go bald after too many years of dealing with the added stress of hair care. “It was just time," she explained. "I was just ready for that kind of expression and release. I’m so glad I did it. It was such a beautiful experience and such a freedom. I feel more connected to myself and to the great divine in a very special way."
Courtesy Willow Smith/Instagramfrom Celebrity News – Us Weekly https://ift.tt/3ejXdM8
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