Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s 20-year marriage hasn’t been easy and it nearly came to a fiery end.
“I think for me the turning point in my relationship is when I turned 40,” said Jada, 47. “I can’t do this, like this anymore.”
The revelation was part of the Season 2 debut of “Red Table Talk,” which was released Monday.
Will, 50, explained that from 2009 to 2010, at the height of the family’s fame — hosting the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, Willow’s “Whip My Hair” single success, Jaden’s “Karate Kid” blockbuster and Jada’s starring role on “Hawthorne” — they were falling apart behind the scenes.
“Externally our family was winning, right? There was a period where Mommy cried for 45 days straight,” Will recalled. “I started to keeping a diary. It was every morning. I think that’s the worst I’ve ever felt in our marriage. I was failing miserably, but on the outside I was winning.”
Will said he was building a picture of his ideal family but didn’t realize Jada was sacrificing herself to fit the image.
“I had a public perception that I wanted to project of our relationship, of the family, and what my kids are, what my wife is and what we are in the world,” the actor said. “If there were an individual most poisonous aspect of our relationship in the past, is I felt that money and winning made a good relationship. We’re succeeding in the world. That means our relationship is good … I was unaware of what it truly meant to connect with somebody.”
According to Jada, she feared rocking the boat and let a lot of issues pass without consequence.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jada revealed she never wanted to get married and was pushed to tie the knot by her mother, Adrienne Banfield Jones.
“I was under such pressure, being a young actress, being young. Pregnant. I didn’t know what to do. I just knew, I never wanted to be married,” Jada said.
Jada got pregnant with son Jaden two years after dating Will. Just three months into her pregnancy, in December 1997, she unhappily walked down the aisle.
“I just never really agreed with the construct,” she said of marriage. “I just don’t agree with it. I never have. I still don’t. To death do us part, is real for me. It’s all of the rules and ideas.”
Will, on the other hand, always dreamed of marriage and family. “There wasn’t a day in my life that I wanted anything other than getting married and having a family,” Will emphasized. “Literally 5 years old, I was picturing what my family would be.”
In the end, they agreed that getting married was the right course of action. In June, Jada explained that she and Will no longer refer to themselves as married, but call each other partners.