'Swingers by night'? Jada Pinkett Smith relishes Will's sex scenes so much, many would find her voyeurism weird
The pair of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith is one of a kind. They are among the few couples in Hollywood who have defied odds and are still together. Like most of the successful couples in the show business, Will and Jada also remain out of the public eyes, but they also occasionally give revealing interviews about their 'open' marriage. And that’s what makes them unique.
The pair’s first meeting dates back to 1994 when Jada auditioned to play Will’s girlfriend in the '90s television show ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’. Though she did not become his love interest in the show, the two connected in real life, and after a few years of dating, they tied the knot on New Year's Eve in 1997. The pair share two children, son Jaden, and daughter Willow.
The couple has candidly spoken about their marriage several times. In 2019, Jada explained why the couple is so open. "[It] 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,” she told ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’. And most recently in April, the 48-year-old actress revealed during her Facebook Watch series, ‘Red Table Talk’, how the coronavirus quarantine impacted her marriage to the ‘Bad Boys for Life’ star. “I gotta be honest. I think one of the things that I’ve realized is that I don’t know Will at all,” Jada said as she explained: “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."
She added: “The thing that Will and I are learning to do is be friends. You get into all these ideas of what intimate relationships are supposed to look like, what marriages are supposed to be.” While the power couple is growing and learning together since 1997, that has not stopped speculations about their marriage and rumors that the two have an open marriage. So what is the secret to the couple’s two-decade-old successful relationship?
Jada helped Will in his divorce
Before saying “I do” to Jada, Will was married to Sheree Fletcher. Their marriage was short-lived, but the pair had a son together — Will III aka Trey. At the time, Jada helped Will a lot while dealing with the aftermath of his divorce.
In an earlier interview with PEOPLE, Jada said: “I helped him understand what happened in his marriage.” She, by then, had realized that Will was her soulmate. “Will gave me a safety net. No matter what, he’d be willing to work things out,” she added at the time.
Rumors of cheating
When in 2011 rumors of Jada getting close to J-Lo's then-husband Marc Anthony started doing rounds, Will and Jada strongly denied the allegations. It was reported at the time that Jada and Anthony had an "inappropriately close" friendship and the latter one was "caught at the family home". However, Will Smith did not pay heed to rumors and shut down talks about their marriage being in troubled waters.
A sense of freedom
In 2013, Jada told HuffPost Live that the ‘Men in Black’ star had the freedom to do what he wanted. "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 said, adding: “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."
Jada has no problem with her husband’s on-screen sex scenes. In fact, Jada enjoys them. At the premiere of Will’s film ‘Focus’, Jada revealed that she actually enjoyed watching all her husband’s intimate scenes with Margot Robbie. “She a little freaky like that,” Will said at the time about his wife to which the mother-of-two responded, “Unfortunately, he's right. It's kind of a nice voyeuristic way to see your man, but I am kind of weird in that way. That's a whole other conversation."
In 2015, when rumors of Will and Jada’s divorce were surfacing in the entertainment world, the ‘Bad Boys’ star strongly denied it. He reportedly received messages of condolences from friends, and to shut them all up, Will took to social media and wrote: “Promise you all if I ever decide to divorce my Queen I SWEAR I'll tell you myself!"
In the same year, Jada said during an interview with Howard Stern that she and her husband frankly talk about their crushes in the industry. "I'm not the kind of woman that believes that a man is not gonna be attracted to other women. I'm just not that girl. It's just not realistic. Just because your man is attracted to another woman does not mean he doesn't love you,” she said. Jada added: “That's not what it means. And it doesn't mean he's gonna act on it. If your man can’t really see another woman's beauty, how the hell is he gonna see yours?"
Rumors of swinging
Just like every other time, the power couple addressed the swinging rumors too in their style in 2017. During her appearance on ‘Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen’, Jada clapped back at the “craziest” rumors she had heard. "The craziest rumor? That Will and I are swingers. That's the craziest one. It's constant! And I’m like, ‘yo I wish! I wish!”
From being married to ‘life partners’
In 2018, Will said that he and Jada saw their relationship beyond just husband and wife tags. “We don't even say we're married anymore. We refer to ourselves as life partners, where you get into that space where you realize you are literally with somebody for the rest of your life,” the 51-year-old said in an interview with Rap Radar. He added: “Nothing that would break our relationship. She has my support till death, and it feels so good to get to that space."