The View’s Ana Navarro had much to say about Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s separation bombshell that dropped Oct. 11. Still, the political strategist sounded like a total hater while talking about the famous couple’s marital status.
“Why do I know so much about these people’s marriage?” Navarro said on the Oct. 11 episode of The View right after Jada revealed she and Will had been separated since 2016 during an exclusive interview with Today’s Hoda Kotb.
“Like, literally—I kind of feel like I know more about their marriage than I know about my own damn marriage.”
Seemingly annoyed by the news, Navarro told her View co-hosts that she would much rather “watch reruns” of Will’s 1995 flick Bad Boys or his popular sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air than hear more about his rocky marriage with the actress.
“Just leave this out of my head,” she continued. “I don’t need to know all of this.”
Navarro’s hot take didn’t didn’t resonate with all of The View’s cast.
Sunny Hostin, 54, jumped in to defend Jada.
“I don’t think anybody knows what goes on in any marriage,” she said. “They’ve lived very public lives, and the slap heard around the world, I definitely thought, was a reaction of Will’s to sort of, I guess, protect her honor somehow.”
Joy Behar, 81, argued that people were “fascinated” by the couple’s marital woes—but Navarro strongly disagreed with her co-hosts. She claimed that Jada was using the separation news to promote her upcoming book Worthy, which will hit shelves Oct. 17.
“Listen, I think she’s having a relationship with her bank account,” Navarro said. “Cause every time she needs to increase the ratings of the Red Table, every time she needs to sell books, she drops these bombshells. I find it unseemly. And I will tell you this: Be careful of anybody who pretends to have a perfect marriage.”
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Navarro doubled down on her comments after the show.
“You telling me he slapped the shit out of Chris Rock, ruined his career, got banned from the Oscars, swept us all up in the drama, and they’re not even schtupping,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Will and Jada have never tried to pretend or act like their marriage was perfect; the duo has been transparent about the ups and downs of their over 20-year-long “unique union.”
In 2020, The Matrix star and her husband sat down on an episode of Red Table Talk to discuss the former’s highly publicized “entanglement” with R&B singer August Alsina. The tough chat exposed vulnerabilities in their marriage and a sense of bravery that many couples could relate to.
Will — who tied the knot with Jada in 1997 — claimed in his 2021 memoir that he and his wife opted to become non-monogamous when their marriage became “miserable.”
“We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison,” he added.
The news may be annoying to some, but Jada and Will have the right to set the record straight about their private life — especially as two high-profile celebs living under the media’s and Hollywood’s gaze. And hell, who are we to judge if they can make a few coins while doing so?
During her exclusive interview — which aired in full Oct. 12— Jada explained why she and Will decided to part ways.
“By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying,” the matriarch said. “I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”
As for why she and Will kept their separation status private, the star told Hoda that they weren’t sure how they wanted to “present” their unique relationship to the world.
All-in-all, love isn’t lost for the celebrities. Jada said she and Will vowed to never “get a divorce.”
“I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce,” she added. “We will work through whatever, and I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”
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