Jada Pinkett Smith has confirmed she split from her husband, Will Smith, back in 2016. In a preview of an interview with Hoda Kotb on NBC News, the 52-year-old actress said she and Will, 55, have lived “completely separate lives” for the past 7 years. Smith revealed the news of their separation ahead of the release of her memoir, Worthy, which will be released on Oct. 17.  Pinkett Smith also addresses in her memoir the moment when Will infamously slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards, after Rock made a joke about Jada.

Jada and Will married in December 1997 and share two children: son Jaden, 25, and daughter Willow, 22.  The famous couple consider themselves divorced, although they never legally filed to end their marriage, with Pinkett Smith saying that the pair kept their separation private and appeared together in public, shutting down rumors of their split.

Pinkett Smith also explained why she and Will kept their split private: “I think just not being ready yet, still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership and in regards to how do we present that to people. And we hadn’t figured that out. I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get divorced — we will work through whatever — and I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”  As for what led to the split, Jada said: “I think by the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying. I think we were both stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”

In a separate interview with People, Jada said of her marriage: “We’re still figuring it out. We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”

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