When people are drawn to celebrities (and especially celebrity couples), they tend to assume that those people have similar values to them.
This is partially due to the fact that maintaining relevance as a celebrity nowadays is all about relatability and partially due to the limited view we have into their lives. After all, it’s not like most people tend to post their lowest moments on Instagram.
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So when R&B singer August Alsina revealed last year that he had a relationship with Jada Pinkett Smith during her separation with Will Smith, this seemed to shatter the squeaky-clean image that a lot of people had of the Smiths.
But while the resulting drama in their lives put the word ” entanglement ” firmly into the public’s lexicon, Smith is now saying that it gave people a distorted impression of what was going on in their relationship.
And without revealing too much, that’s a record he wants to set straight.
During an extensive profile on Will Smith for GQ’s November cover story, he expressed some frustration with how the public perceived Pinkett Smith’s entanglement.
As he put it , “Once the public decides something, it’s difficult to impossible to dislodge the pictures and ideas and perceptions.”
He used an example of how a photo of him looking exhausted was interpreted as being distraught to learn about the affair, but there’s a bigger misconception that gets to the heart of the matter.
Namely, that Pinkett Smith was the only one to pursue a sexual relationship outside of their marriage.
While he didn’t elaborate much on this point because he didn’t feel it was just his story to tell, he suggested that he had at least one entanglement of his own.
As Smith explained, the couple’s marriage had reached an acrimonious low in 2011. This was at least partially because Smith had pressured her to adopt some traditional aspects of marriage that didn’t suit her.
In his words, “Jada never believed in conventional marriage.… Jada had family members that had an unconventional relationship. So she grew up in a way that was very different than how I grew up.”
So while Smith is sparse on the details as to when this happened, it seems there was a period after that point where the couple stopped being monogamous.
As he said, “We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison.”
For them, this was about deciding not to see monogamy as “the only relational perfection.”
But even with that way of looking at their relationship in place, Smith said that he and Pinkett Smith have nonetheless actively chosen monogamy throughout most of their relationship.
In his words, “I don’t suggest this road for anybody. But the experiences that the freedoms that we’ve given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love.”
And from the sounds of it, they both deeply prefer how they’re operating now to the screaming matches they’d have back in 2011.
h/t: GQ
