Will Smith Breaks Silence On Jada Pinkett Smith’s Bombshell Memoir: “Emotional Blindness Sets In”

Jada Pinkett Smith‘s previous entanglements were just the start of shocking revelations Will Smith has publicly confronted with his wife and family. Following the release of her new memoir Worthy, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star has broken his silence about his estranged wife’s confessions.

In an email sent to The New York Times, Smith claimed that the book “kind of woke [him] up.” The actor said Pinkett Smith had “lived a life more on the edge than [he] had realized” and that she is more “resilient, clever, and compassionate than [he] had understood,” per Deadline.

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

Smith’s comments come just a few days after Pinkett Smith revealed on The Today Show that she and her husband have been separated — and “living separately” — for seven years. When Hoda Kotb asked what led to the end of their marriage, Pinkett Smith admitted it was “a lot of things.”

“By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying,” she said. “I think we were both still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”

Despite their secret split, the couple — who tied the knot in 1997 — kept up the act of a happy marriage because they were “still trying to figure out” how to be in “a partnership.” While they haven’t been together for years, the two have refrained from filing for a legal divorce.

“I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce,” Pinkett Smith explained. “We will work through whatever. And I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”

The star also made other bombshell revelations in her book, including one about Chris Rock asking her out years before Smith slapped him onstage at the 2022 Oscars for making a joke at her expense.

Regarding the slap heard ‘round the world, the Red Table Talk host said she was “unclear on the reason why” Smith was “so upset” by Rock’s joke since they had been “living separate lives” for six years by that point.