Jada Pinkett Smith has disclosed how the dynamics of her marriage with Will Smith dramatically changed after he slapped Chris Rock at last year’s Oscars.
Speaking to Red magazine, the actress, 52, said: ‘I’m not thinking in a million years he’s getting up on stage and it has anything to do with me!’
She added: ‘That’s when your relationship gets deeper than romance or all the c**p that comes with marriage.
‘I was just really concerned about Will. And I realised in that moment that, as challenging as our relationship can be, I’m always going to be by his side, no matter what.’
At the 94th Academy Awards, Will stormed the stage and slapped Chris after the comedian cracked a joke about Jada looking like ‘G.I. Jane’ because of her bald head when she had recently revealed that was suffering from alopecia.
The pair had secretly separated six years prior to the incident.
While she and Will were living separately at the time, Jada explained that they’ve always had each other’s backs, more so now that they’re apart.
She revealed: ‘Us pulling at each other to love each other so that we could feel a certain way about ourselves, to then separate and find our emotional independence, to then meet each other in the middle.
‘Learning how to show up for ourselves is showing up for the other person. It’s been a deep learning process in how to love.’
While Jada has been open about the complexities of their marriage, she revealed that she prefers not to use ‘conventional’ relationship titles to describe their union.
She explained: ‘I try to stay away from conventional terms like “marriage” because people have a very specific idea of it and I’m not in the business of trying to change that.
‘I like spending time with me and I like spending time with my family and that’s it. I have no desire to do anything else but that.’
She revealed: ‘I wasn’t going to go into a marriage in my early 20s, in Tinseltown – Will being one of the most sought-after actors in the world – thinking we were exempt from having to confront inevitable temptations… I didn’t want to play that game.
‘So I was just like, “This is where we have to have a level of friendship; this is where we have to be honest with one another.” That friendship has been the core of what’s helped us get through some of the most difficult times.’
In later years the focus has been on finding balance in her personal life and career, with Jada revealing ‘I had to get really solid on what my priority was.’
She continued: ‘At the end of the day, that was my family. That doesn’t fit into what makes a powerful, independent woman? Leave a woman to decide for herself what is important to her.
‘It’s a lot of personal reconciling that helps us get that balance – recognising that we’re not here to be everything to everybody, and that’s okay.’