Who Is Jada Pinkett Smith Dating?

Though Pinkett Smith began dating Will Smith in 1995, their connection was established years prior when the two were young actors in the early 1990s. At the time, Smith was making music with DJ Jazzy Jeff and starring in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” while Pinkett Smith was starting her career in “A Different World.” In a 2018 video interview with Vanity Fair, the “Magic Mike XXL” star revealed that she met Smith when she was 19 during an audition to play Smith’s girlfriend on “The Fresh Prince,” but ultimately lost the job to Nia Long for being too short. Smith noticed Pinkett Smith during the audition, but met Sherri Zampino that same day, and ended up marrying her in 1992.

Pinkett Smith made a lasting impression on Smith, and after his divorce from Zampino in 1995, he immediately wanted to give Pinkett Smith attention. The two began dating almost immediately, and in Dececember 1997, they tied the knot in a private ceremony in Pinkett Smith’s hometown of Baltimore, MD. In addition to Smith’s son from his marriage to Zampino, Trey Smith, the couple have two children together: Jaden Smith (born 1998) and Willow Smith (born 2000).

Over the course of their relationship, Pinkett Smith and Smith have been the subjects of intense rumors, with a prominent one being that the pair were in an open relationship. In 2013, the “RTT” host told HuffPost Live, “I’ve always told Will, ‘You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay.” She continued, “Because at the end of the day, Will is his own man. I’m here as his partner, but he is his own man. He has to decide who he wants to be and that’s not for me to do for him, or vice versa.” Pinkett Smith later clarified her comments in a Facebook post, writing, “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.”

While they appeared on great terms in the public eye, the couple’s relationship was slowly deteriorating in private. In a sit-down interview with “Today” in October 2023, Pinkett Smith shockingly revealed that she and Smith had been quietly separated since 2016. “By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying,” she said. “I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”

While the two have been living separate lives, she and the “King Richard” actor haven’t divorced because they are still trying to work on their partnership. “I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through whatever. And I just haven’t been able to break that promise,” Pinkett Smith explained.