Will Smith Reveals 'Unconventional' Details of Marriage With Jada Pinkett Smith, His Own Extramarital Relationship
Will Smith opened up about his "unconventional relationship" with his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, in his new cover interview with GQ magazine. Pinkett Smith previously revealed she had an "entanglement" with singer August Alsina in a July 2020 episode of Red Table Talk, discussing the extramarital affair with Smith sitting at the table. The couple has been married for 23 years but went through a period of separation at the time of her relationship with Alsina several years ago.
Smith, 53, wrote about his relationship with Pinkett Smith, 50, in his new memoir Will, but not extensively. He said that many of the details of their relationship have already been made public, pointing to that emotional Red Table Talk episode. "Jada never believed in conventional marriage," Smith told GQ. "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."
Smith and Pickett Smith only discussed her relationship with Alsina because the singer made comments about being romantically linked to her years ago. For viewers, it might have seemed like Pickett Smith was the only one having other sexual relationships, but Smith told GQ "delicately" that this was not the case. Smith declined to go into further details, but he did respond to the memes spawned by a Red Table Talk shot of the actor looking sad and exhausted. "It was midnight and we were going on vacation the next day," Smith said of the now-famous shot, adding that everything he and Pinkett Smith talked about in the episode was years behind them. "It was like, no, no, no, guys, I'm not sad. I'm f- exhausted," Smith added.
Smith and Pinkett Smith married in 1997 and are parents to Jaden, 23, and Willow, 20. Their relationship is at a better place today, but they reached a "breaking point" in 2011. When Jada celebrated her 40th birthday, Smith showed her a documentary he commissioned that tracked her family's lineage back to slavery. "That was the most disgusting display of ego I have ever seen in my life," Smith recalled her telling him after showing the film. Later, there were loud arguments between the two. "Our marriage wasn't working," Smith wrote in his book. "We could no longer pretend. We were both miserable and clearly, something had to change."
Elsewhere in his interview with GQ, Smith discussed his experiences with intimacy coach Michaela Boehm. During one meeting with her, he told her one of his dreams was to have a harem of girlfriends, and he'd invite Misty Copeland and Halle Berry. "I don't know where I saw it or some shit as a teenager, but the idea of traveling with 20 women that I loved and took care of and all of that, it seemed like a really great idea," Smith said with a laugh. And then, after we played it out a little bit, I was like, 'That would be horrific. That would be horrific.' I was like, 'Can you imagine how miserable?'" Will hits bookstores on Nov. 9, while Smith's next movie, King Richard, opens on Nov. 19.