Will Smith is opening up about his relationship with Jada Pinkett Smith, and yes, that includes their sex life.
On the Nov. 5 episode of the Apple TV+ series The Oprah Conversation, the 52-year-old Men in Black actor revealed to host Oprah Winfrey some naughty details about the early days of his relationship with his wife of almost 25 years, who he also wrote about in his new memoir, Will.
During the interview, Oprah read an excerpt from the book, in which Will wrote that at the start of his romance with the 50-year-old actress, the two "drank every day, and had sex multiple times every day, for four straight months." He added, "I started to wonder if this was a competition. Either way, as far as I was concerned, there were only two possibilities. 1) I was going to satisfy this woman sexually, or 2) I was going to die trying."
"Since you're not dead, we assume you won the competition," Oprah told Will, who laughed and replied, "Well, it ended up being a lot more complex than that, Oprah."
"You know, those early day were spectacular," he said. "Me and Jada, to this day, if we start talking, it's four hours. It's four hours if we exchange a sentence. And it's like, it's the center of why we've been able to sustain and why we're still together, not choking the life out of each other. It's like, the ability to work through issues...I've just never met another person that I connect with in conversation more blissfully and productively than Jada."
Jada has also spoken about her sex life with Will, telling Piers Morgan on his CNN show in 2011 that she and her husband "have made love in some interesting places." On a 2018 episode of her Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk, she told her mom and co-host Adrienne Banfield-Norris that she thinks she thinks she had a "sex addiction" when she was younger, adding that she believed "everything could be fixed by sex."
Will and Jada soon began dating after meeting on the set of his sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1994 and married in 1997. They share two children, Jaden Smith, 23, and Willow Smith, 20. Over the years, the couple's relationship has often come under scrutiny and since 2011, the two have often been the subject of breakup rumors, which they denied.
In 2013, Jada addressed reports that she and Will had an open marriage, writing on Facebook, "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 2017, on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Jada was asked about rumors she and Will were swingers, joking, "I'm like, ‘Yo, I wish. I wish!'"
But in 2020, while sitting with Will on her Facebook Watch show Red Table Talk, Jada revealed that the two had temporarily separated years prior and confirmed to him that she did have an extramarital affair. In a recent GQ magazine interview, the actor said the actress was not the only one engaging in other sexual relationships and "never believed in conventional marriage."
In his memoir, Will recalls a breaking point in his and Jada's marriage, which he spoke about with his wife on Red Table Talk in 2018: He had a documentary team to produce an elaborate presentation for her 40th birthday party in 2011. The actress, who wanted her party to be more intimate, called it a "most ridiculous display" of Will's ego, the actor said on her talk show.
When asked how long he and Jada were separated following the incident—months or years, Will told Oprah, "We never actually like, officially separated. What happened was we realized that it was a fantasy illusion that we could make each other happy. And we agreed that she had to make herself happy, and I had to make myself happy, and then we were going to present ourselves back to the relationship already happy versus demanding that the other person fill our empty cup."
Will talked about "you love in freedom with everybody except your partner," adding, "It's friendship versus marital prison."
When asked if this all meant that they could have "other partners," Will told Oprah, "We talk about everything and I think the difficulty that people have and the difficulty in discussing it is people only think in terms of sex...where people are trying to put something on it—'Will and Jada, what they doin' with other people?' So, Will and Jada ain't really doin' too much-a nothin'. Will and Jada are on a spiritual journey to cleanse the poisonous unloving parts of our hearts and we're doing it together in this lifetime, no matter what. But the goal is not a sexual goal...we're going to love each other no matter what."
"No woman can make me happy. So I don't need to go look for one to try to make me happy," he continued. "No man can make Jada happy. So she don't need to go look for one to make her happy. We both know that. There is no person that will fill your hole."
He added, laughing, "That's probably not the best way to say that."