Quarantine Made Jada Pinkett Smith Realize ‘I Don’t Know Will At All’

Being in quarantine for almost two months with Will Smith has Jada Pinkett Smith questioning whether she really ever knew her husband of 23 years at all. On Wednesday’s special episode of Red Table Talk, Pinkett Smith shared with viewers how much the coronavirus pandemic has impacted her marriage.

With many couples forced to spend more time together due to the coronavirus pandemic, numerous people find they are learning new things about their significant other. This apparently includes Pinkett Smith, as reported by Entertainment Tonight.

“I gotta be honest. I think one of the things that I’ve realized is that I don’t know Will at all,” she said. “I feel like there’s a layer that you get to, life gets busy and you create these stories in your head and then you hold onto these stories and that is your idea of your partner, that’s not who your partner is.”

Pinket Smith hosts her Facebook live show with daughter Willow Smith and her mother, Adrienne Banfield Norris. This week’s episode is part of a series entitled “How Your Relationship Can Survive Quarantine.”

As reported by BuzzFeed, Pinkett Smith invited her longtime marriage counselor, Michaela Boehm, to appear as a guest. Boehm explained how a quarantine can put a strain on even the longest of marriages, noting that it can bring out a “fight, flight, or freeze” reaction in couples. Pinkett Smith conceded that in her case, she tends to go straight to the fight response.

However, Pinkett Smith said that she and her husband are working through their issues to build both a better relationship and a genuine friendship with each other, according to People.

“The thing that Will and I are learning to do is be friends…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 and us building a friendship along the way.”

Will and Jada have been married since December 1999. During their 23 years together, the two have been candid with their fans regarding the state of their marriage and the highs and lows they’ve faced over the years.

The couple has also made some surprising statements in the past when discussing their relationship. Back in 2013, the two publicly acknowledged that they have an open marriage. In a 2018 interview, Will Smith admitted that he and his wife do not refer to themselves as “married,” but rather as “life partners.”