Jada Pinkett Smith revealed that she and her husband, Will Smith, had been separated since 2016, a period of six years leading up to the highly publicized "Oscars Slap" incident, during a recent interview broadcast on Wednesday,
The Hollywood power couple's marriage came under intense spotlight at last year's Academy Awards, when Smith struck comedian Chris Rock onstage for making a joke about his wife.
But the pair had already been living "totally separate lives" for years before the notorious incident, Pinkett Smith told NBC News.
"By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying," she said in an advance clip from an interview to promote her new memoir, "Worthy."
For many years, the couple repeatedly denied rumors of affairs and an open marriage.
But in 2020, Pinkett Smith openly discussed an extramarital "entanglement" she had with singer August Alsina some years earlier, during a period of separation from her husband.
According to Wednesday's snippet, that separation has endured until now, although the pair remain legally married.
Asked why the couple had chosen to conceal their separation, Pinkett Smith said they were "just not ... ready yet" and "still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership."
"We just got a deep love for each other, and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us," Pinkett Smith told People magazine in a separate interview.
Pinkett Smith also discussed last March's Oscars ceremony in an excerpt from her memoir published Wednesday.
Rock was presenting onstage when he cracked about Pinkett Smith's closely cropped head. She has alopecia.
Smith mounted the stage and slapped the comedian hard across the face before returning to his seat and yelling obscenities at the presenter.
In the excerpt, Pinkett Smith recalls that she initially thought the slap was a "skit," and even once she realized it wasn't, she remained "unclear on the reason why Will is so upset."
"We had been living separate lives and were there as family, not as husband and wife," she writes.
The couple first met on the set of Smith's sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" in 1994.
Smith was married then to his first wife, who he later divorced.
The couple have two children together, Jaden and Willow.
