Jada Pinkett Smith revealed that when her husband, Will Smith, slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, it marked a turning point in their marriage. The actress, 52, had previously revealed that she and Will, 55, had been separated since 2016, but she said that after the slap, they began doing work on their marriage. She admitted that she had a perspective shift on her husband during an in-person conversation in New York, sponsored by Vanity Fair and CAA.
Jada revealed that before the awards ceremony, she and Will had already begun work to try to repair their marriage. “After the Oscars, that’s when we did some really deep work together,” she explained, per Variety. Once she saw the King Richard star slap Chris, she said that something different “clicked.”
After the slap, Jada said that she was going to stick by Will’s side. “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,” she said.
Before her memoir Worthy drops, Jada has revealed that she and Will have been separated since 2016. After her “entanglement” with August Alsina was revealed in 2020, Jada explained why they didn’t come forward with the state of their marriage in their infamous Red Table Talk discussion. “Will decided he wanted to come with and we were going to then tell the world, ‘Hey, we haven’t been together and this happened during that time,’” she said during an appearance on the On Purpose podcast. “He wasn’t ready for the world to know that. I had to respect that. Well I didn’t have to, but I wanted to.”
Will has responded to what Jada has said about their marriage in a comment to The New York Times. “When you’ve been with someone for more than half of your life, a sort of emotional blindness sets in, and you can all too easily lose your sensitivity to their hidden nuances and subtle beauties,” he wrote.
