Why Will Smith And Jada Pinkett Smith Refused To File For Divorce Despite Being Separated For Nearly

Highlights

• Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have weathered numerous scandals.
• The cracks in their relationship began to show about a decade into their marriage.
• Despite living separate lives since 2016, the couple remains committed to their marriage.

It's been almost three decades since Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith first crossed paths on the set of the beloved NBC sitcom, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Since then, the duo has been somewhat of a fixture in tabloids and headlines, navigating multiple public scandals and controversies.

However, even in the face of potentially career-ending scandals, the two always emerged seemingly unscathed, leaving fans in awe.

Fans were, therefore, completely caught off guard when Jada revealed that she and Will had been living separate lives for nearly a decade. Here's why, despite growing weary of trying to mend their relationship, the two chose not to file for divorce.

Inside Will Smith And Jada Pinkett Smith’s Scandalous Marriage

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's decades-long relationship has certainly weathered its fair share of turbulence and controversy. From the entanglement fiasco with August Alsina to the infamous Oscars slap incident, the two have had to navigate some rather intense public storms throughout their marriage.

What’s more, just like any other couple, the two have not been spared some internal struggles. As detailed in Will Smith’s eponymous memoir, things really started going downhill about a decade into the marriage, when the two seemingly started becoming disillusioned with their union.

"Our marriage wasn't working. We could no longer pretend. We were both miserable, and clearly something had to change. We were suffering the brutal death of our romantic fantasies, the burning away of the idealistic illusion of the perfect marriage and the perfect family," he wrote.

“Neither of us wanted a divorce; we knew we loved each other, and some aspects of our union were magical. But the structure of the life that we had established was strangling both of us.”

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With the cracks in their relationships becoming impossible to ignore, Will and Jada decided to take some time apart. “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 figure out how to make myself happy,” Will revealed during their infamous July 2020 Red Table Talk interview, where they not only discussed their marital troubles, but also set the record straight on Jada’s years-long entanglement with R&B singer August Alsina.

Will Smith And Jada Pinkett Smith Were Secretly Separated For Nearly A Decade

After several years apart, Jada and Will eventually reconciled. “I would definitely say that we tried everything we could to get away from each other, only to realize that that wasn’t possible,” Pinkett Smith said.

However, with their reconciliation came some rather unconventional relationship dynamics. “We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison,” Will Smith said of their relationship in a September 2021 interview with GQ.

“And I don’t suggest our road for anybody. I don’t suggest this road for anybody. But the experiences that the freedoms that we’ve given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love.”

Astoundingly, their newly found relationship dynamic did little to bridge the cracks in their relationship. In a candid interview with Today show host Hoda Kotb, Jada revealed that she and Will have been living separate lives since 2016.

“I think by the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying,” she said. “I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”

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In fact, Jada was almost as taken aback as audiences everywhere by Will's reaction to Chris Rock's comments about her hairstyle at the 2022 Academy Awards.

“I am unclear on the reason why Will is so upset,” she writes in her upcoming memoir, Worthy, according to People. “We had been living separate lives and were there as family, not as husband and wife. But when I hear Will yell “wife” in the chaos of the moment, an internal shift of Oh s**t. . . I am his wife! happens instantly.”

Why Will Smith And Jada Pinkett Smith Refused To File For Divorce

Even in their separation, Jada and Will continued to present a united front to the world, strutting hand in hand down multiple red carpets. “I think just not being ready yet,” Pinkett Smith explained in her interview with Today show’s Hoda Kotb.

“Still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in [a] partnership, right, and in regards to ‘how do we present that to people,’ you know? And we hadn’t figured that out.”

With such glaring and longstanding relationship troubles, fans might wonder why the two didn’t file for divorce. Well, as it turns out, the duo banished divorce from their dictionary early on, and they're hell-bent on sticking to that playbook.

“I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce,” Pinkett Smith shared with Hoda Kotb. “We will work through whatever. And I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”

“We 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,” Will reiterated during his 2018 appearance on Rap Radar.

“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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As for what the future holds for their relationship, it seems the couple is still intent on smoothing out the wrinkles in their relationship. “We’re still figuring it out,” Pinkett-Smith shared with People in the aftermath of Will and Chris Rock’s Oscar’s slap incident.

“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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