Will Smith has finally addressed Jada Pinkett Smith’s claims about their marriage in her new memoir and said her comments “kind of woke him up”.
In recent days, the 52-year-old actress has revealed that she’s been “separated” from Smith, 55, since 2016 but aren’t legally divorced and won’t ever be “able to break that promise”.
"By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying," she told Today. "I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be."
Pinkett Smith, who said the pair haven’t lived together for two years, also insisted that she was “shocked” that he called her his “wife” when he slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars after he made a joke about her hair-loss.
The altercation resulted in widespread criticism of Smith who subsequently resigned from the Academy and was later banned from attending all Oscar events for the next 10 years.
In light of her comments, the King Richard star has showed his support for Pinkett Smith once again.
The New York Times, who interviewed her ahead of her book’s release, noted that Smith said his wife’s memoir, Worthy, “kind of woke him up” and that he has now realised she is more “resilient, clever and compassionate than he’d understood”.
He said in an email to the publication: “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.”
Smith also seemingly acknowledged the recent furore on social media and shared a video of himself on a boat enjoying a lovely nap.
He tellingly captioned the post: “Notifications off” while Pinkett Smith comments a laughing face emoji.
The couple married in 1997 and share son Jaden and daughter Willow while Smith has a son Trey from his first marriage to Sheree Zampino.
Pinkett Smith has previously denied the couple have an open relationship and speculation about the state of their marriage reached fever pitch in 2020, when the actress revealed she had had an “entanglement” with singer August Alsina, 31.
