Jada Pinkett Smith has been such a controversial figure lately — from her husband Will Smith's infamous Oscars slap scandal to her new docu-series, Cleopatra on Netflix. Her talk show, Red Table Talk has also been canceled by Meta after its decision to cancel all of its Facebook Watch Originals.
The series has famously exposed a lot of celebrities' deepest secrets, including Jada and Will's marital issues — which fans blame for the latter's violent outburst at the 2022 Oscars.
Even Nick Cannon called it "toxic table." He said he's glad the show is over as "too much honesty can get your a** slapped in the face." Many fans agree with the TV star's comments, especially about the couple airing their dirty laundry on screen.
"That was royalty, Will and Jada," Cannon added. "Then they brought it to the table. I don’t want to know all this s**t about y'all. I just want to mind my black own business. I don't want to be up in everybody else's kitchen. Keep that s**t to y'all selves."
Well, he's probably also seen that episode where Jada admitted to being "pressured" to marry Will, which went viral following his Oscars altercation... Here's what's really going on with their 25-year marriage.
Jada Pinkett Smith Had An 'Entanglement' With Her Children's Friend August Alsina
During a one-on-one conversation with Will on Red Table Talk, Jada discussed her "entanglement" with R&B singer, August Alsina in 2016. She was 45 while he was 24. August was a close friend of the pair's children, Jaden and Willow.
Speaking about the affair, Jada told the viewers: "I just wanted to feel good, it had been so long since I felt good. And it was really a joy to just help heal someone. I think that has a lot to do with my co-dependency." Will then assured her that he'd love her through it all, sharing their motto: "We ride together, we die together—bad marriage for life!"
In 2020, the host also confessed that she had realized she "didn't know Will at all" during quarantine. "I have to be honest. I think one of the things that I've realized is that I don't know Will at all," she said in an episode of RTT. "You get into all these ideas of what intimate relationships are supposed to look like, what marriages are supposed to be."
She then shared: "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."
Why Jada Pinkett Smith Felt 'Pressured' To Marry Will Smith
Amid the Oscars slap scandal, internet sleuths found a 2018 episode of RTT wherein Jada said she was forced to marry Will in December 1997. "I was under so much pressure," she said alongside her daughter Willow and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris. "You know, being a young actress... I was pregnant and I just didn't know what to do. I never wanted to be married."
"I never wanted to be married," she continued, noting that she only did because Gammy (Adrienne) was crying. "I remember feeling very strongly and wanting you guys to be married," Adrienne recalled. "I do remember [wanting you and Will to get married] but I don’t remember your rejection of the idea of marriage. I remember the rejection of the idea of a wedding but not of a marriage."
The matriarch added that "the wedding was horrible. It was a mess. Jada was sick, she was very unpleasant … She didn't cooperate with anything," to which the actress agreed, saying: "And I was so upset that I had to have a wedding. I was so pissed I went crying down the freaking aisle. I cried the whole way down the aisle."
Jada Pinkett Smith Denied Asking Will Smith To Defend Her After Chris Rock's Oscars Joke
When Jada's statements about being "pressured" to marry Will resurfaced, she had just clarified to Us Weekly that she didn't ask her husband to defend her during Chris Rock's Oscars joke about her bald head.
"I never said he needed to protect me," she explained to the outlet. "It was in the heat of the action and he was the one who overreacted. I didn't and wouldn't do it in any way."
Around the same time, a source told the magazine that the couple weren't letting the fiasco affect them "in any way" as "they stick together through thick and thin" and "they have been through a lot together and this is just another battle for them." They noted that they are "an unbreakable couple [that] will be together forever."
A year after the incident, Chris took a dig at the couple during his Live on Netflix comedy special. "I didn't have any entanglements," he said at that time. "She hurt him way more than he hurt me." He also quipped that he had been watching the slavery drama, Emancipation starring Will just to see him "get whooped."