What Will Smith Has Said About Divorcing Jada Pinkett Smith

The relationship of married actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith has come under scrutiny in recent years following Jada Pinkett Smith's remarks about a romantic "entanglement" with another man and her husband's infamous slap in her defense at the Oscars last month.

While rumors have circulated several times that the famous couple was headed for divorce, both have not given any indication that their marriage will end. Still, Will Smith and his wife have commented several times over the years on the prospect of a divorce.

The pair were married in December 1997 when Jada Pinkett Smith was already two months pregnant with their first child, Jaden Smith. It was Will Smith's second marriage after his first union with Sheree Zampino ended in divorce, a development he once called "the worst thing in my adult life" on an episode of his wife's Facebook Watch show Red Table Talk.

That experience appears to have shaped his approach to marriage and divorce.

"Divorce can't be an option. With Jada, I stood up in front of God and said, 'Til death do us part,'" he told MTV News in 2006. "So there are two possible outcomes. One, we are going to be together 'til death, or two, I am dead."

Jada Pinkett Smith has expressed similar views. "I told Will from the gate, I said let me tell you something, 'If you marry me, know this: we're gonna be together. We're going to be under the same roof'... for me personally, I knew that there was no reason that he and I would ever [divorce]," she said of a conversation before their wedding on a 2018 episode of Red Table Talk.

This self-described commitment to making their marriage work has reportedly not stopped the two from engaging in extramarital relationships. Jada Pinkett Smith has publicly discussed her years-long relationship with musician August Alsina, including during another infamous Red Table Talk episode in July 2020.

She said that during a period in which she and Will Smith were temporarily separated, her relationship with Alsina, previously a friendship, grew into "a different kind of entanglement."

Will Smith revealed during a GQ interview in 2021 that his wife was not the only one who had relations outside of their marriage.

This move from monogamy to a less conventional relationship reportedly came after issues that arose from Jada Pinkett Smith's 40th birthday party in September 2011, which Will Smith planned for her.

Will Smith revealed in 2018 that his wife told him the party was "the most ridiculous display of my ego," and that he "snapped," E! News reported.

After the birthday party and his reported display of outrage, Will Smith said in the 2018 Red Table Talk episode that they "essentially had to destroy our marriage" in order to make it work, but divorce was still "never even an option."

"Because I had been divorced before I wasn't getting divorced again," he said.

Jada Pinkett Smith also said at the time that divorce was not in the cards. But the pair did separate, commencing the period in which Alsina became a romantic presence in her life.

While Jada Pinkett Smith described her time with Alsina as a journey where "I learned so much about myself," she and her husband eventually reunited.

"You gotta go through some s--t to get the answers. And I'm just happy because I definitely believe that you and I, we never ever, ever thought that we would make it back," she said during the 2020 Red Table Talk episode.

Will Smith also stressed during an appearance in 2018 on TIDAL's Rap Radar podcast that there are "no deal breakers" in their relationship.

"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," he said.

Newsweek reached out to representatives for Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith for comment.