Jada Pinkett Smith says she and husband Will Smith might divorce in ten years after revealing the pair have lived ‘completely separate lives’ since 2016.

The prominent Hollywood couple married in 1997 and have addressed separations and marital troubles in the past, but Pinkett Smith revealed in an interview with Hoda Kotb on Friday night how the pair essentially have a divorce without papers.

Smith, 55, and Pinkett Smith, 52, share two children, Willow and Jaden, as well as a son, Trey, from Smith’s first marriage.

‘Why not just amicably divorce? Why not just do that’, Kotb asked.

‘We don’t want to,’ Kotb replied. 

‘We love our family, and we love each other. You know, it’s more of a life partnership. Now, ten years from now, who knows?’ Pinkett Smith said.

Kotb pushed further asking if the pair have a deal should each of them decide to date someone else – but such a suggestion was quickly pushed aside.  

‘Well, you know, right now what we’re focused on, which has been so beautiful, is deep healing – because of everything that’s transpired. Now, what happens after that, I don’t know yet,’ Pinkett Smith explained.

‘Is it possible that there would be a full reconciliation?’ Kotb asked.

‘You know, he’s getting old. You know what I’m saying he getting old who going to be there for him, Hoda it’s going to be me. It’s going to be me. I will be there,’ Pinkett Smith said, suggesting the couple would never completely part ways. 

News of the couple’s split came as a surprise to many, considering Pinkett Smith’s candor in her Red Table Talk series, in which she and Smith addressed her extramarital relationship in an episode in 2020, and the slap at the 2022 Academy Awards. 

At the ceremony, Smith infamously walked up on stage and struck presenter Chris Rock after Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s hair. 

In the days leading up to the release of her memoir Worthy, Jada Pinkett Smith detailed for the first time to Hoda Kotb that she and husband Will Smith had been separated since 2016

Jada and Will pictured at the Oscars in 2022 with their children Jaden and Willow, as well as Will’s son Trey, 30, by his first wife Sheree Zampino

Will slapped comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022 after he made a joke about Jada’s bald head

Smith has apologized several times for the incident , which got him a 10-year ban on attending the Oscars or any other academy event. 

And at the time, no one in the public knew that the highly-publicized couple had been living apart since 2016. 

Since then, she and Smith have made many public declarations of their love and admiration for each other, suggesting their separation was amicable.

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She told Kotb: ‘By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying. I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.’

She wrote in her book: ‘It was not a divorce on paper. But it was a divorce.’ 

Pinkett Smith, who admitted in 2020 that she’d had an affair with singer August Alsina, said she considered a legal divorce but could never go through with it, candidly revealing that she made a ‘promise’ to her husband that she would never give him a ‘reason’ to get divorced. 

‘I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through… whatever,’ she said. 

Pinkett Smith also revealed how Smith hit on her in 1994 while he was still married to his first wife Sheree Zampino, seen left, holding their son Trey Smith

The Hollywood couple, who wed in 1997, have dealt with separations and marital difficulties and now essentially have an informal divorce. Pictured in November 2022

Will and Jada – seen at the 2022 Academy Awards – were separated when the actor slapped Chris at the Oscars

‘We will work through whatever and I just haven’t been able to break that promise.’

‘But you still live separately?’ Kotb probed, prompting her to confirm: ‘We live separately’.

Jada’s new memoir is titled ‘Worthy’

During the hour long interview, Pinkett Smith also revealed how Smith hit on her in 1994 while he was still married to his first wife Sheree Zampino.  

The two struck up a friendship but and Pinkett Smith’s mother did not approve.

‘He called me when I was in Baltimore with my mom. She was like, “Listen, tell him — y’all hang up that phone. You don’t need to be talking to no married man.” And I was like, “She’s right.” And so I was like, “Will, I’m so sorry, but my mom says please don’t call me anymore. And so we didn’t talk again for a whole other year.’

By 1995 Smith was going through a divorce and wasted no time in reaching out to Pinkett Smith once again. 

‘He called me and he was like, “Where are you?” And I was like, “I’m in Baltimore,’ she recalled. 

‘He was like, “Are you coming back to L.A.?” And I was like, “Yeah. He was like, “Are you seeing anybody? And I was like, “No. And he said, “Good, because you seeing me now. And I was like, “What?!”

‘Just straight up, you know. I kind of liked that,’ Pinkett Smith said.