Will Smith Says Marriage 'Ain’t for the Weak at Heart': How He and Jada Pinkett Smith Reunited After Split
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are giving a candid look at the ups and downs in their marriage after the actress confirmed she'd had a romantic relationship with singer August Alsina while they had been briefly separated.
"We came together young and we were both broken in our own ways and to be able to make mistakes without the fear of losing your family is so critical," Smith, 51, said while on Pinkett Smith's Facebook Watch show Red Table Talk on Friday.
The couple married in December 1997 and have two children: Jaden, 22, and Willow, 19. The two met Alsina, 27, about "four and a half years ago" and Pinkett Smith, 48, became "really, really good friends" with him, she said.
At the time, the Red Table Talk co-host said she and Smith “were going through a very difficult” phase and had decided to “separate for a period of time.” Pinkett Smith and Alsina then had a romantic "relationship," she revealed.
Smith said their brief split had taken a toll on him, saying, "I wasn’t sure I was ever going to speak to you again. Like the fact that I’m speaking to you again is a miracle. [Marriage] ain’t for the weak at heart. There’s just certain things that you have to go through. I wish it could be all magic and miracles."
Paras Griffin/Getty August Alsina and Jada Pinkett Smith at the 2017 BET Awards
Pinkett Smith agreed, saying, "You gotta go through some s— to get the answers. And I’m just happy because I definitely believe that you and I, we never ever, ever thought that we would make it back."
"It’s the idea of any relationship and trying to get to a deeper understanding of love is going to be forced in fire. There’s no way around it," she added. "And I think that one of the things that I’m deeply grateful for in this whole process between you and I is that we have really gotten to that new place of unconditional love."
Smith said, "There's a real power in just knowing somebody’s riding with you no matter what. And you really can’t know that until you go through some stuff."
The two laughed as they repurposed the tagline from Smith's movie Bad Boys: "We ride together, we die together. Bad marriage for life."
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