Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith make up one of Hollywood’s most influential couples. Through the web series Red Table Talk, Jada and Will often divulge details of their relationship and their family. In a Red Table Talk episode from April 29, 2020, Jada revealed that quarantine due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic made her realize that she does not “know Will at all.”
Jada Pinkett Smith realized she did not know Will Smith
On Red Table Talk, Jada sat down with her daughter, Willow Smith, and her mother, Adrienne Banfield Norris. The episode also featured Michaela Boehm, John Gray, and Aventer Gray as guests. Jada explained that quarantine forced her to realize that she did not know everything about Will’s personality even though they have been married since 1997.
“I gotta be honest. I think one of the things that I’ve realized is that I don’t know Will at all,” she said. “I feel like there’s a layer that you get to, life gets busy and you create these stories in your head, and then you hold onto these stories and that is your idea of your partner; that’s not who your partner is.”
The couple in quarantine
While Jada came to this realization, she said that they took the time to reflect and work on themselves.
“This is intimacy,” Jada said on Red Table Talk. “Just being able to get to who our loved ones are beyond that which we have perceived.”
She added that the two accomplished this by working on loving themselves and working on a friendship.
“The thing that Will and I are learning to do is be friends. Because you get into all of these ideas of what intimate relationships are supposed to look like, what marriages are supposed to be,” she said. “So, Will and I are in the process of him taking the time to learn to love himself. Me taking the time to learn to love myself, right? And us building a friendship along the way.”
She continued, “Let me tell you, that’s been something, to be married to somebody 20-some odd years and realize I don’t know you and you don’t know me and also realizing there’s an aspect of yourself you don’t know either.”
Why Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith talk about their relationship on the show
This is not the first time Jada used Red Table Talk to talk about her evolving relationship with Will. The most notable episode of the Facebook Watch series premiered on July 10, 2020. In the episode, Jada and Will discussed Jada’s relationship with August Alsina that occurred while Jada and Will were separated.
While the couple’s unreserved discussion might have appeared as a shock to those who do not actively follow the web series, Jada has admitted that she finds it beneficial to talk about the good and bad parts of their relationship on Red Table Talk.
Back in 2018, Will appeared on two back-to-back episodes of Red Table Talk. In a 2019 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jada explained why she felt the need to have him on the show.
“What was really important about Will and I doing that [Red Table Talk] together — two things: First of all was really to kind of get rid of the idea that people in the public eye have perfect relationships. We were kind of sick of living up to that. We were real sick of it,” Jada said.
She continued, “And then second of all, really having myself and Will come and talk about our relationship — sometimes you see just women do it alone or you just see a guy do it. Us coming together and taking responsibility for both of our parts and also Will being the successful guy that he is and being willing to share what his pitfalls were in the relationship and in his family, you can’t imagine how many other successful men called and said, ‘Wow, my wife has been saying the same thing for years. Because you said it, it opened my eyes and because you said it, now I’m willing to listen.’”
