Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith‘s children are standing by their father amidst the bombshell revelations coming from their mom as she promotes her memoir, Worthy. A source told Entertainment Tonight on October 16 that Jaden Smith, 25, and Willow Smith, 23, “feel bad” for Will, 55, because of everything Jada’s said about their marriage, including that they’ve been separated since 2016. “They know he has been going through a lot lately and this isn’t helping,” the insider explained, adding that the Smith kids “wish some of their family’s private matters remained private.”
Will, who is also a father to son Trey, 30, with his first wife, Sheree Zampino, is “trying to stay busy” by “hanging out with his good friends and his kids” as Jada, 52, continues to talk about their marriage, the source said. They added, “He’s trying not to let any outside noise impact him. Will loves Jada and feels like he has always had her back and always will. He has been trying to be supportive, while also taking care of himself.”
Ahead of the release of her book which is out October 17, Jada revealed that she and Will separated in 2016 after almost 20 years of marriage in an interview with NBC News. However, the Girls Trip actress vowed to not get a legal divorce from Will. “I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce,” she told Hoda Kotb in the interview. “We will work through whatever, and I just haven’t been able to break that promise,” she said.
Will broke his silence about the reveal of the separation in response to a comment request from The New York Times. “When you’ve been with someone for more than half of your life, a sort of emotional blindness sets in, and you can all too easily lose your sensitivity to their hidden nuances and subtle beauties,” he said. Days later, the King Richard star posted a funny video on Instagram and said that he has “notifications off” amidst the buzz about his marriage.
Will and Jada met at an audition and tied the knot on New Year’s Eve in 1997. Their son Jaden was born in 1998 and their daughter Willow was born in 2000. One of the biggest moments for Will and Jada was when they sat down on Red Table Talk in 2020 to open up about Jada’s “entanglement” with singer August Alsina. In a recent interview with Jay Shetty, Jada revealed that her and Will intended to tell the truth about their separation on her talk show, until Will changed his mind at the last minute.
“He wasn’t ready for the world to know that. I had to respect that. Well I didn’t have to, but I wanted to,” Jada explained on the On Purpose podcast on October 16. “I had to stay on my path while also respecting that Will wasn’t ready,” she added. “So I said, ‘You know what, this is my mess anyway, I’m going to take this heat because guess what? The heat is coming either way.’ ”
This story originally appeared on Hollywoodlife
