Jada Pinkett Smith is set to lay bare a shocking ‘secret’ about her marriage to Will Smith in a dramatic new interview with NBC News – with a teaser clip revealing that the actress will lift the lid on something that changed in their relationship back in 2016.
The 52-year-old sat down with Today anchor Hoda Kotb for a lengthy interview to promote her new memoir, Worthy, in which she shares details about some of the most difficult and traumatic aspects of her life – including her husband’s now-infamous Oscars meltdown in which he slapped comedian Chris Rock on stage.
In a new preview clip from Jada’s interview with Hoda, 59, the Today anchor is seen asking the mother-of-two about something that occurred in her marriage back in 2016.
‘From the year 2016, which is seven years ago now, y’all have been…’ Hoda asks while holding her hands up to indicate distance.
Jada Pinkett Smith is set to lay bare a shocking ‘secret’ about her marriage to Will Smith in a dramatic new interview with NBC News
In a new preview clip from Jada’s interview with Hoda Kotb, 59, the Today anchor is seen asking the mother-of-two about something that occurred in her marriage back in 2016
Will, 55, and Jada tied the knot in 1997 and they share two children together, while Will also has another son from a previous relationship
‘Yes,’ Jada responds while pulling her hands apart and clicking with her mouth.
Today anchor Savannah Guthrie hinted that Jada will reveal ‘the secret about her marriage to Will Smith’ for the ‘very first time’.
The interview teaser comes amid Jada’s ongoing publicity tour for her new book, which has seen her opening up about a number of difficult topics – including her battle with ‘depression’ and ‘despair’, which began when she turned 40.
‘”On paper,” it all looked grand – I had the beautiful family, the superstar husband, the lavish lifestyle, fame and fortune,’ she writes in the book, according to an excerpt obtained by People.
However, she says that, behind the scenes, ‘I’d fallen into despair and wanted to be on this earth less and less.’
Jada’s marriage to Will came under blistering public scrutiny in 2020, when she interviewed him on her chat show Red Table Talk about an ‘entanglement’ she had four years earlier with a much younger man.
The relationship gained even more notoriety last year when Will slapped Chris at the Oscars for making a bald joke about Jada that visibly offended her.
She will address that infamous slap in her interview with Hoda, with the Today anchor saying of her interview with the actress: ‘I learned some really shocking developments that I was completely unaware of.
‘She was sitting next to Will during that Oscar slap. She has a perspective. … She actually weighs in and explains what she saw.’
Jada was the product of a tempestuous childhood in Baltimore, scarred by her mother’s heroin addiction and father’s alcoholism.
Against the backdrop of her turbulent home life, Jada grew to become a drug dealer by the time she befriended Tupac Shakur in high school.
‘I learned some really shocking developments that I was completely unaware of,’ Hoda said of her interview with Jada
Jada laughed as Hoda asked her about the ‘shocking secret’ in her marriage
In her autobiography, she writes that she discovered during adulthood that she was suffering from ‘complex trauma with PTSD and dissociation.’
However, during her period of intense distress in the year of her 40th birthday, she had yet to receive an official diagnosis and was left struggling to get to grips with her trauma.
The excerpt begins with her driving through Ojai, California heading to a meeting with a mysterious ‘Medicine Woman’ she hopes will alleviate her issues.
‘Don’t be afraid, I tell myself. You are in peaceful, beautiful Ojai. Why are you so scared?’ she wrote. ‘Because, I answer right back, what if THIS actually kills me?’
Then, she added: ‘Three months earlier, in the wake of my fortieth birthday, my biggest worry was Well, what if it DOESN’T?’
Pulling back the veil of her glittering public persona, Jada recalled: ‘For two decades, I had been putting on a good face, going with the flow, telling everyone I was okay. Yet underneath, bouts of depression and overwhelming hopelessness had smoldered until they turned into raging hellfire in my broken heart.
‘Unwelcome feelings – of not deserving love – made it harder to understand the disconnect between the so-called perfect life I had achieved and the well of loss I carried with me. Therapy helped up to a point. It got me to 40! But to what end?’
Her solace came from her children Jaden, 25, and Willow, 22, as well as Will’s son Trey, 30, by his first wife Sheree Zampino – but even they were not enough.
‘I would later be diagnosed and informed that I suffer from complex trauma with PTSD and dissociation, but without this guidepost, I was a chronic mess with no fix, no possibility to heal,’ Jada wrote in her book.
‘Every morning, waking up was like walking the plank of doom – could I make it to four p.m.? If I could, I had survived the day.’
She remembered: ‘I always wanted to sleep, but I never slept well. My children could put a smile on my face and were my only motivation to keep me going, but more and more, I could feel myself losing my grip of connection to them.’
Her ennui had descended on her despite her ‘checking off boxes meant to define being enough to deserve “having it all,”‘ but that had ultimately not had not delivered the gifts that had been promised.’
She wrote that she had ‘followed the rules…the rules we’re told to follow. You work hard, make sacrifices for those you love. The rules tell you: Be a doting mother and a doting wife, do the work required, and life turns into paradise. NOPE. A loving relationship, harmony, peace…that happiness had yet to be delivered.’
Jada acknowledged: ‘”On paper,” it all looked grand – I had the beautiful family, the superstar husband, the lavish lifestyle, fame and fortune. I had my own career, the freedom and support to pursue creative outlets. The sweetest part was my kids – Jaden, Willow, and my bonus son, Trey – my three favorite people in the world.’
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