Relationships Talk

It wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine kisses in the Pinkett-Smith household. 

In the latest episode of Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Watch Red Table Talk show, the Girls Trip actress and her husband of 20-years Will Smith got real about their at one-time struggling marriage. 

Monday’s (October 29) episode picked up right where it left off last week, with Will detailing how he had been blind to his family’s unhappiness due to his jaded idea of success. “I saw for the first time what Jada had been saying the whole time about hiding behind my ego, my dreams and my desires and pretending like it’s love,” Smith said, referencing their now 17-year-old daughter Willow’s decision to shave her hair off in protest of her doing more music following her hit “Whip My Hair.” “And I realized [Jada] wanted none of the stuff I had built.” He added: “The house was too big, there was always too many people here, she didn’t want to travel the way we traveled. She didn’t want all of her kids to be getting trolled on Twitter. She didn’t want any of that.”

Jada then hopped in saying, “And there was a decline from there.”

“Yup,” Will agreed. “To have to let go of the picture, to have to let go of the dream was devastating. We essentially had to destroy our marriage.” He continued, “I was reading in the tabloids that we were getting divorced and all of that stuff.” Despite tabloids claims about the two seeking professional advice to dissolve their union, Jada said, “I had never even seen a divorce lawyer! It never even crossed my mind.”

Will admitted he also felt the same way towards the idea of divorce, however, that didn’t mean they didn’t break up within their marriage. “Because I had been divorced before, I wasn’t getting divorced again. Divorce wasn’t an option,” he said. “I was devastated even worse than a divorce. We broke up within our marriage and got back together again,” he revealed. “We had to rebuild with new rules and something way, completely different.” Jada further explained their split, saying, “You really have to go your separate ways to figure out your stuff. You have to be strong enough, and understand clearly what it is you’re in search for… because that whole time you’re in a union you’re pointing fingers cause you’re thinking it’s your partner[‘s fault]… You have to get away and get out of each other’s way to really see yourself.” She added: “So I had to go away and gain my strength as Jada again — not mommy, not wife, Jada.”