Jada Pinkett squirms about Will Smith on TV 1 year into separation

Jada Pinkett Smith’s latest revelation on her marriage to Will Smith now sheds new light on one of her juiciest past interviews.

On Wednesday, the actress, 52, revealed that she and Smith, 55, had been secretly separated for six years at the time of Smith’s infamous 2022 Oscars slap – in which he smacked Chris Rock on live TV, for making a joke about Jada’s hair. 

The audio was cut and censored for several seconds as Smith returned to his seat. But captions and lipreading by viewers revealed his message to Rock: “Keep my wife’s name out of your f–king mouth.”

But now, Jada has revealed that she was only “his wife” on paper, and they were living separate lives since 2016.

This new information makes Jada’s 2017 interview with Andy Cohen stand out – since, in retrospect, she and Will had already been secretly separated for a year. 

During the interview, Jada is asked about the “craziest rumors” she’s heard about herself and Will, including the rumor that they’re swingers. “That’s the craziest one! It’s constant,” she said. “I’m like, yo, I wish!” 

When Cohen asked if Jada has tips for keeping a romance hot after 23 years together, Jada gave a long pause, looking uncomfortable, before saying, “I don’t know! I mean, I’m baffled, really,” she stammered, and paused again for a tense-sounding laugh. 

“Will and I just have amazing chemistry on a lot of different levels. We love to laugh together, we love to learn together, and we just love each other. We just have a good time together,” she said.

“Yeah, I guess that’s the secret. Yeah, we just really like each other!” she concluded.

The actress spoke about their private life in a clip from an upcoming NBC interview with Hoda Kotb, which aired on Wednesday. The segment will air in full on Oct. 13, which coincides with her new book, “Worthy.” 

When asked what the reason was for keeping their separation secret, Jada replied that she and Will were “Still figuring out between the two of us, how to be a partnership…in regards to how do we present that to people. We hadn’t figured that out.”

On how the relationship fractured, she explained, “That’s a lot of things…we were exhausted with trying. We were both stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.” 

“It was not a divorce on paper, but it was a divorce,” Kotb said, to which Jada said, “Yeah.” 

Will and Jada have been married since 1997 and share kids Jaden, 25, Willow, 22, and Trey, 30. (Will welcomed Trey with ex Sheree Zampino).

“We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together,” she told People in an interview published on Wednesday. “We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”

“Jada’s Story – An NBC News Special” airs Friday, October 13 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.