Jada Pinkett Smith Opens up About Maintaining Sex Life With Husband Will Smith

Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have often gotten candid about what It takes to keep a marriage going for nearly 25 years. On the latest episode of Red Table Talk, Gwyneth Paltrow was promoting her new Netflix show, Love, Sex, & goop, and the conversation turned to sex in a long-term relationship. Pinkett Smith explained that communication is the key, but that both parties need to make an effort. 

“It’s hard,” the Girls Trip actress admitted. “The thing Will and I talk about a lot is the journey. We started in this at a very young age, you know, 22 years old. That’s why the accountability part really hit for me because I think you expect your partner to know [what you need], especially when it comes to sex. It’s like, ‘Well if you love me, you should know. If you love me, you should read my mind.’ That’s a huge pitfall.”

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Pinkett Smith explained that while she was “crushed” to learn this lesson, it ultimately helped their relationship. “You tell me what you need. Tell me what you want, and on top of it, I know that I have to be accountable to do the same…,” she said. “I really try. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s deeply healthy, and I think around sex, because it’s something that we don’t talk about, and there’s so much fantasy around it.” She later clarified her remarks on Twitter after many took this admission to be a sign of trouble. “Only because I got time today.Stop making up headlines,” she tweeted. “Watch the [Red Table Talk] I did with [Gwyneth Paltrow] for yourselves. Will and I have NEVER had an issue in the bedroom. Thank you.”

The power couple married in 1997 and share two children, Willow and Jaden, and Smith recently told GQ some details of their “unconventional” partnership. “Jada never believed in conventional marriage,” Smith said. “Jada had family members that had an unconventional relationship. So she grew up in a way that was very different than how I grew up. There were significant endless discussions about, what is relational perfection? What is the perfect way to interact as a couple? And for the large part of our relationship, monogamy was what we chose, not thinking of monogamy as the only relational perfection.”

They gave each other “trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way,” Smith continued. “And marriage for us can’t be a prison. 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.”