Will Smith and Jada Keep It Real! Everything the Couple Have Said About Their Decades-Long Marriage

On Being in Love

“Love will make you do crazy things,” Will told the 2022 Oscars audience after defending Jada following an altercation with Chris Rock.

Their Intimate Moments

“Me and Jada, to this day, if we start talking, it’s four hours. It’s four hours if we exchange a sentence. It’s the center of why we’ve been able to sustain [our relationship] and why we are still together, not choking the life out of each other — the ability to work through issues,” he said during an interview on Apple TV+ in November 2021. “I’ve never met another person that I connect with in conversation more blissfully and productively than Jada.”

On Being Open With Your Partner

“It’s hard,” Jada told Red Table Talk viewers during an October 2021 episode. “The thing Will and I talk about a lot is the journey. We started in this at a very young age, 22 years old … 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.”

She went on to explain how it’s important to speak openly to your partner.

“It’s uncomfortable, but it’s deeply healthy,” Jada shared. “[Especially], I think, around sex, because it’s something that we don’t talk about a lot and there’s so much fantasy around it.”

On Being Transparent About Their Open Marriage

When Jada’s relationship with August Alsina, which she called an “entanglement,” made headlines in July 2020, it was revealed she and Will were separated for a bit of time. However, her romantic relationship with the R&B singer came to an end when the acting pair later reconciled. Though Will and Jada went on Red Table Talk to discuss the dynamic of their marriage, the Aladdin actor said people still had a lot to say about their romance.

“The public has a narrative that is impenetrable. Once the public decides something, it’s difficult to impossible to dislodge the pictures and ideas and perceptions,” he told GQ in September 2021, saying they have no regrets about being honest about their relationship. “The pursuit of truth is the only way to be happy in this lifetime … we sort of came to the agreement that authenticity was the release from the shackles of fame and public scrutiny.”

On Being ‘Life Partners’

“We don’t even say we’re married anymore. We refer to ourselves as ‘life partners,’ where you get into that space where you realize you are literally with somebody for the rest of your life,” the Bad Boys star revealed during an interview with TIDAL’s “Rap Radar” podcast. “There’s no deal breakers. There’s nothing she could do — ever — nothing that would break our relationship. She has my support till death, and it feels so good to get to that space.”

On Divorce Rumors

If there’s one thing that Jada is sick of, it’s all the divorce rumors about her and Will. She put all those allegations to rest during a previous appearance on Sway’s Universe. “Here’s the thing about Will and I — [we] are family. That is never going down,” the mom of two explained. “I am going to hold him down, doesn’t matter. All that relationship and what people think ideas of a husband, partner and all that, man, whatever. At the end of the day, that is a man that can rely on me for the rest of his life, period.”

On Their Longtime Marriage

Staying together for more than two decades hasn’t necessarily been easy for Will and Jada. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Will said “marriage was the most difficult, grueling, excruciating thing that we have ever taken on in our lives. And you know we’re just not quitters.” Sounds like these two are in it for the long haul! 

On the Secret to Staying Together

Their secret to a long marriage is simple. “We never went into working on our relationship. We only ever worked on ourselves individually — and then presented ourselves to one another better than we were previously,” Will also told ET.

On Prioritizing Their Marriage

In order for them to succeed, Will had to learn how to take the backseat in his marriage so the Gemini Man actor said they “essentially had to destroy [their] marriage.”

“Because I had been divorced before, I wasn’t getting divorced again,” he said on Red Table Talk. “We had to rebuild with new rules and something way, completely different.”

On Raising Their Kids

Will loves his lady’s parenting. “I’m not gonna be silly. I’m here to honor you. Just watching the piece with the kids it just takes me back to when we made them. Can’t help but think about that. It’s just amazing. It’s like you take Jada Pinkett Smith and an obscure town in Mexico and some tequila and you end up with great kids!” he gushed to reporters at Vh1’s Dear Mama Event in May 2019.

On Ever Breaking Up

Although Will divorced his first wife, Sheree Zampino, in 1995, Jada never had to experience the gruesome feeling of a marriage falling apart. “For me personally, I’m not mature enough to have a divorce,” Jada previously shared on Red Table Talk. For the Set It Off actress, Jada could not even think about “breaking up assets” with Will because she explained that’s when things get messy. “Let me tell you, that’s when the red table turns upside down and it won’t be red no more!” she said.

On Staying Strong

No one is going to get in between these two! “You gotta trust who you’re with, and at the end of the day, I’m not here to be anybody’s watcher. I’m not his watcher,” Jada said on The Howard Stern Show in June 2015. “He’s a grown man. I trust that the man that Will is is a man of integrity. He’s got all the freedom in the world and as long as Will can look at himself in the mirror and be OK, I’m good.”