Will Smith mocks publicity storm surrounding Jada Pinkett Smith marriage as he issues ‘official statement’

Will Smith has appeared to mock the publicity storm surrounding his relationship with Jada Pinkett Smith.

In a video titled “official statement” shared on Instagram on Tuesday night (18 October), the former Fresh Prince of Bell Air addressed the camera as though he’s about to give a sincere confession.

“So, here’s the thing. My opinion is…. Uh…,” the actor said before sneezing into the crook of his arm.

As he sneezed, the video comically zoomed out to show several different landscapes including lakes and mountains.

Smith’s video comes after his wife Jada shared a shock revelation with People magazine last week that the pair have been separated for the last seven years.

The Set It Off and Girls Trip actor, 52, revealed this while saying she was “shocked” that Smith had called her his “wife” while supporting her against a Chris Rock joke at the 2022 Oscars, which infamously ended with Smith hitting Rock in the face on-stage.

In a separate interview with People in promotion of her forthcoming memoir, Pinkett Smith revealed that, while the pair aren’t legally divorced, they have been living separately since 2016.

Smith, 55, then showed his support for Pinkett Smith in an on-the-record statement shared to The New York Times, who interviewed the latter in an article published on Saturday (14 October).

The outlet notes that Smith said his wife’s memoir, titled Worthy, “kind of woke him up” and that he has now realised she is more “resilient, clever and compassionate than he’d understood”.

He added: “When you’ve been with someone for more than half of your life, a sort of emotional blindness sets in, and you can all too easily lose your sensitivity to their hidden nuances and subtle beauties.”

Then, during an appearance on the Today show on 16 October, Jada explained to Hoda Kotb that she and the Suicide Squad actor are “working hard” and are “concentrating on healing” to get their relationship to a better place.

“There’s no finding another great love, and I think that’s the point,” she told the NBC anchor. “It’s like we are in a place now that we are in a deep, healing space. And we are really concentrating on healing the relationship between us.

She added: “There’s no divorce on paper. We really have been working hard. That’s the whole thing. We are working very hard at bringing our relationship together. Back to a life partnership.”

Smith married Jada Pinkett in 1997 after divorcing actor Sheree Zampino two years earlier. They first met after Pinkett Smith failed to audition for a role as Smith’s character’s girlfriend on the 1990s series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Together, they share children Jaden, 25, and Willow, 22, as well as Will’s son Trey, 30, whom he had with his first wife, Sheree Zampino.

In 2013, rumours that the couple have been in an open relationship began circulating after Pinkett Smith told The Huffington Post in 2013: “Will is his own man. I’m here as his partner, but he is his own man.”

As rumours continued, Pinkett Smith elaborated upon her quotes while speaking to Howard Stern in 2015.

“At the end of the day, I’m not here to be anybody’s watcher,” she said. “I trust that Will is a man of integrity. So, he’s got all the freedom in the world.”

However, after rumours about the couple’s relationship continued, Pinkett Smith wrote on her Facebook page: “Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship… this means we have a GROWN one.”

In 2020, singer August Alsina claimed Smith had given “his blessing” for him to have a relationship with Pinkett Smith.

Jada and Will appeared on an episode of Jada’s Red Table Talk where Jada confirmed that she was involved in an “entanglement” with Alsina, saying that she and Will were “separated amicably” at the time.

“We decided that we were going to separate for a period of time and you go figure out how to make yourself happy and I’ll figure out how to make myself happy,” Jada said at the time.

“From there, as time went on, I got into a different kind of entanglement with August… Yes, it was a relationship absolutely.”

Pinkett Smith then said that Will didn’t give her permission, as the only person who could give her permission to embark on the relationship with Alisna was herself.