Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have been apart for seven years

If you're a bit of a celeb, you're probably writing a book by now. But since everyone is doing that, you need to include some juicy anecdotes, because you want a bestseller, of course. Matthew Perry boasted in his autobiography about his bed conquests, the fact that he was the funniest in all of Hollywood, and that he was BFFs with the late River Phoenix (it was a terrible autobiography). Prince Harry went a step further and talked about his losing his virginity and his circumcision. When you look at it that way, the revelations in the book Worthy, by Jada Pinkett Smith, are quite tame.

But that doesn't make it any less shocking: in her book, she writes that she and Will Smith have actually been separated since 2016, just not on paper. And I think the reaction of almost everyone was the same: what about The Slappening during last year's Oscars, when Will Smith stormed the stage to slap Chris Rock? The comedian made a joke at the expense of Jada Pinkett Smith, and despite Will initially laughing, he realized a few seconds later that he didn't find it funny and charged the stage, uttering the now-iconic words after the slap:

The world was in shock, including Jada, it turns out. In her book, she writes: ‘When Chris was still standing there afterwards, I believed my observation was correct: aha, this IS an act.’

Only when Will shouted those words did she realize it wasn't an act, but that only confused her even more. In Worthy, she writes: ‘It was only when Will shouted from his seat at Chris […] that I saw the seriousness of the situation, and that it wasn't an act. And yet, it's unclear to me why Will is so upset. We were living separate lives and were there as a family, not as a married couple. But when Will in that moment shouted ‘my wife’, a shock went through me: oh shit... I am his wife!’

It's remarkable that she forgot to be honest in 2022, because two years earlier she was still sitting with Will on her talk show Red Table Talk, discussing her infidelity: she had slept with August Alsina, a friend of her son Jaden. When they met, Jada was 43, August 22. In Red Table Talk, she tells Will that they were separated at the time, so he didn't need to give his approval. They end their conversation with the words: ‘We ride together, we die together. Bad marriage for life!’

Logically, people are quite confused by this: why didn't they just say earlier that they were living separately? Why go through all the trouble to present themselves as a couple, especially after one of them has been unfaithful? And why does she choose to reveal this now, in a book (it's not entirely unthinkable that people conclude it's to rake in money)? The internet is also handling it in the old-fashioned way: with humor.

‘Does Will know about this separation?’
‘These two are every relationship therapist's wet dream’
‘No idea when ‘be exhausting’ became a PR strategy, but everything I know about these two has been against my will’

Just a few examples on Reddit that I personally chuckled at. But what I'm most curious about is: Will Smith's reaction to all of this. That is — it seems to me — a matter of time.