If the formerly assumed power couple parted ways seven years ago and have been living separate lives, why did they keep it a secret?
Why did they fake a united front after their private 2016 break-up, put on a loved-up appearance at various red carpet events and even go on to share intimate “truths” about their marriage on Jada’s tell-all talk show Red Table Talk?
Hoda Kotb asks Jada these hard-hitting questions in her sit-down interview with the actress on the US morning show Today, where her marriage revelations first came to light while promoting her upcoming memoir Worthy.
“I guess my question is – I feel like you’re a straight talker … except you’re not sometimes. Why do that – what was the reason?” Kotb asks.
Jada Pinkett Smith being interviewed by Hoda Kotb on Today. Photo / Getty Images
“I think, just not being ready yet”, said Pinkett Smith. “Still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership, right? In regards to, ‘How do we present that to people?’ And, we hadn’t figured that out.”
Later on in the interview, the Matrix actress said “a lot of things” caused the relationship to come to an end. “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 an awkward resurfaced clip that was aired during the interview, Pinkett Smith can be seen squirming during a sit-down on Watch What Happens Live a year after she and Will had separated.
She confirmed to Andy Cohen that she and her husband had been together for “23 years”, before being asked by the host how she keeps her marriage “hot”.
“Uhhh, how do I keep it hot? Y’know … uh … maybe … I don’t know. I’m baffled, really.”
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith at the Critics Choice Awards in March last year. They continued to appear at events together, despite splitting up in 2016. Photo / Getty Images
Kotb told her co-hosts on the Today show that it had been “the strangest revelation” that one of Hollywood’s most iconic couples had been separated for all these years.
“Those two people haven’t called each other husband and wife in all those years …”
“Except for the appearance, everywhere they went?” co-host Savannah Guthrie added.
Another presenter on the show said what many were thinking in the aftermath of the interview: “I have so many questions.”
