Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s Relationship: A Complete Timeline

She continued, “You tell me what you need. Tell me what you want, and on top of it, I know that I have to be accountable to do the same…. I really try. It's uncomfortable, but it's deeply healthy, and I think around sex, because it's something that we don't talk about and there's so much fantasy around it.”

2022

Will slaps Chris Rock on live television during the 2022 Academy Awards after the comedian makes a joke about Jada's baldness, which is due to alopecia, by comparing her style to Demi Moore's buzz cut in the 1994 film G.I. Jane. Though Will initially seems to laugh at the joke, he quickly turns angry.

“Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth,” he yells at Rock, before approaching the stage to slap him. Later on during the ceremony, Smith wins the best actor award and says in his speech that “love makes you do crazy things.” He is later removed from the Academy and apologizes for his behavior.

Over a year later, in 2023, Jada tells Kotb that she was “shocked” Will called her his wife at the Oscars, saying they “haven’t called each other husband and wife in a long time.” According to Variety, she added, “I’m like, ‘What is going on right now? Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth?’ I’m really worried for Will because I don’t know what’s going on.”

Despite their separation Jada tells Parade that the slap brought her and Will closer together. “Look, everybody wants to ride in the limo, right?” she says. “Everybody wants to be down when everything’s lovely. What happens when things aren’t so lovely? What happens when people who love you need you, and when you need people that you love? And so that was a moment that I feel like we recognized once again, ‘Oh, snap, we are just made for this journey together.’ And I was like, ‘No matter what, I am here with you. I don’t care what is going on.’ And I think that is the moment for both of us when we looked at each other and said, ‘Wow, we’re really what we got.’”