Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith are easily one of the most private and powerful celebrity couples of all time. For more than 20 years, their relationship has been the subject of speculation, since they first got together following Will’s divorce from Sheree Zampino in 1995. On the premiere of the new season of Jada, Willow, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris' Red Table Talk on Facebook Watch, Will joins his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law to take a deep dive into his and Jada's relationship from its beginnings to now.
The conversation comes in two parts, with “The Real Mr. & Mrs. Smith Pt. 1” arriving Monday and the second still to come. Will says his Fresh Prince co-star Alfonzo Ribeiro arranged a meeting between the two on the set of A Different World. Instead of meeting Jada that night, Will ended up being introduced to his first wife and the mother of his first son, Trey. He did eventually meet Jada at various parties hosted by mutual friends. At one point the actor recalls crying in a bathroom stall at a restaurant during a dinner with his first wife, after realizing Jada was the woman he was actually supposed to marry.
“I was sitting in a stall in the restaurant and I was crying uncontrollably,” he says. “I knew that was the woman I was supposed to be with, but I was never getting divorced.”
Eventually, Sheree asked Will for a divorce and the two parted ways. Afterward, Smith called up Jada, who relocated from Los Angeles to Baltimore and bought a farm. “We did not have an affair while he was married,” Jada says directly to the camera, once again dismissing affair rumors.
The two started dating and eventually Jada became pregnant with Jaden, prompting the topic of marriage. During this part of the episode, Jada reveals she never wanted to get married to Will or have a wedding, due to her dislike of conventional expectations, but felt pressured by her mother to do so. She eventually decided that marriage was the best thing for her and Will, but everyone at the table agrees their wedding was “horrible.” “The acceptable definition of wife, and the paradigm, I’m not that,” Jada explains.
Despite the success of their careers and their family, the episode ends as the couple talks about one of the darker points in their marriage. Will's obsessive desire to build a perfect picture of a family became a detriment to their relationship, and Jada became extremely unhappy with life, crying every morning. “I’d been trying to live up to an expectation, for Will,” Jada explains.
“And you were trapped in a life that you didn’t build, that you didn’t want,” Will adds.
“I think the turning point for me happened when I turned 40,” Jada says finally, at the end of the episode. “I was like, I can’t do this like this anymore.”
We’ll have to wait until next week to see what happened after Will and Jada decided to take a break.
