Jada Pinkett Smith Confirms Affair With August Alsina During Red Table Talk With Husband Will Smith

Actress Jada Pinkett Smith confirmed she had an affair with August Alsina when she and husband Will Smith were temporarily broken up. Pinkett Smith opened up about the relationship in a new episode of her Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk, with Smith sitting across the table with her. After Alsina spoke out about the relationship on June 30, Pinkett Smith denied cheating on Smith with the singer.

At the beginning of Red Table Talk, Smith said the couple does not usually respond to rumors like these, but it “got to the point” where they had to say something. “It’s a situation that I consider private. This is a very personal journey that became very public,” Pinkett Smith explained. She said the relationship with Alsina began “four and a half years ago” when they first met and became good friends.

“It all started with him just needing some help, me wanting to help his health, his mental state,” the Gotham star said. Alsina was “really sick” when they first met after their son Jaden Smith introduced her. “The outpouring for him from our family was initially about his health,” Pinkett Smith explained. “We found all those different resources to help pull him through and from there you and I were going through a very difficult time.”

Smith interjected, “I was done with you.” Pinkett Smith agreed, saying the two “broke up” and were “going to separate for a period of time.” Smith asked Pinkett Smith what she did next with Alsina.

“From there as time went on I got into a different kind of entanglement with August,” she explained. “One thing I want to clean up… about you giving ‘permission’ which is… the only person that can give permission in that circumstance is myself.” Pinkett Smith said she believed Alsina might have thought Smith gave him “permission” to be with Pinkett Smith since the couple was “amicably” separated at the time. “I think he wanted to make it clear he’s not a homewrecker because he’s not,” she said. She also clarified that she “absolutely” saw her “entanglement” with Alsina as a “relationship,” but it was not a “transgression” at all.

“Through that particular journey, I learned so much about myself and was able to really confront a lot of emotional immaturity, emotional insecurity and I was really able to do some really deep healing,” Pinkett Smith explained. She realized “certain things” about her relationship with Smith and she broke off “all communication” with Alsina. “I let that be and hadn’t talked to him since so it is a little weird that all this stuff is coming out now since this was several [years ago],” she said.

Smith and Pinkett Smith reunited and have “gotten to that new place of unconditional love,” Pinkett Smith said. They married in December 1997 and are parents to Jaden, 22, and Willow, 19.

Alsina spoke out about his relationship with Pinkett Smith in an interview with The Breakfast Club‘s Angela Yee on June 30. He claimed Smith gave him “permission” to have an affair with Pinkett Smith. A representative for Pinkett Smith told TMZ his story was “absolutely not true.” Check out the full interview below.