Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Harry Thompson

Will Smith's 'marital prison' marriage with wife Jada Pinkett Smith as he hits Chris Rock

Will and Jada Smith have drawn a lot of attention from fans about their unconventional approach to marriage, with rumours about the pair circulating for years.

And with Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars 2022 for joking about his wife's hair loss, their relationship is back under the spotlight.

The couple have two children together, having married in 1997. Jaden and Willow Smith are 23 and 20 respectively.

The couple dominated headlines in 2020 when they finally addressed rumours that they were in an open relationship.

Jada admitted that she'd had sexual relations with August Alsina while she was married to Will.

The Pursuit of Happyness star has also said he has been unfaithful during his time in the marriage.

Tackling the rumours of cheating on Jada’s show, Red Table Talk, they laid bare the nature of their relationship.

Are Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith in an open relationship?

Will Smith slapped Chris Rock round the face at the Oscars 2022 for joking about his wife Jada's hair loss (Rob Latour/REX/Shutterstock)

One year after the Red Table Talk, speaking to GQ, Will Smith gave more information about their relationship and discussed their choices when it came to monogamy.

Smith, 53, gave up intimate details about their 24-year relationship and appeared to indicate that they were in an open relationship.

"Jada never believed in conventional marriage," he admitted.

"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."

Smith spilled the beans while speaking on Apple TV+’s A Conversation with Oprah, saying: "You know, it's really funny. We never actually like, officially separated."

His words were met by Oprah saying no one really knew the details of the two’s supposed breakup.

The said ‘breakup’ had formed out of their lowest point, when the I Am Legend star spent years planning his wife’s 40th birthday party in 2011, only for her to hate it.

"We realised that it was a fantasy illusion that we could make each other happy," he went on.

Will Smith with Jada Pinkett Smith at the Oscars 2022 (AFP via Getty Images)

"We agreed that she had to make herself happy and I had to make myself happy.

"Then we were going to present ourselves back to the relationship already happy, versus demanding that the other person fill our empty cup."

This period is understood to have had a strain on Smith, who discussed experiences with mental health in a trailer for the docuseries Best Shape Of My Life.

He said: "What you've come to understand as Will Smith, the alien-annihilating MC, bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction - a carefully crafted and honed character designed to protect myself, to hide myself from the world, to hide the coward."

Oprah questioned Smith on a line in his book, Will, that read: “Our time apart helped us both to discover the power of loving in freedom.”

He described their relationship as a ‘marital prison’, saying: "You love in freedom with everybody except your partner."

He explained that while you allow room and space in your relationships with friends, this is often not the case with your partner - this was something the handsome couple looked to address.

So, as a solution to their problems, Will told Jada to “go figure out if you can be happy and prove to me it's even possible".

"I'm gonna do me and you do you."

Asked whether what he had said explicitly meant they could have other sexual partners, Will said they talk about everything and that for them the goal of marriage is “not a sexual goal, it’s spiritual”.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.