Will Smith says: ‘Jada and I are ... NOT GETTING A DIVORCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are not divorcing, says the Fresh Prince himself.
The actor took to Facebook on Monday to shut down a report asserting that he and his wife of nearly 17 years were going to announce their split at the end of the summer.
“Under normal circumstances, I don’t usually respond to foolishness. (Because it’s contagious) But, so many people have extended me their ‘deepest condolences’ that I figured - ‘What the hell... I can be foolish, too!’” Smith wrote. “So, in the interest of redundant, repetitious, over & over-again-ness... Jada and I are...NOT GETTING A DIVORCE!!!!!!!!!!!!! : -) I promise you all - if I ever decide to divorce my Queen - I SWEAR I’ll tell you myself! #Dumb People Should Have to Wear Scarlet D’s”
Ahead of Smith’s declaration, this season of celebrity breakups appeared, briefly, to have claimed another long-term couple. The story was debunked, however, just as it was going viral.
RadarOnline got the split story started early Monday morning, reporting that “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” alum and the “Gotham” star were “exhausted from trying to maintain the façade of a happy union.” The site said the couple had reached a confidential divorce agreement to protect their $240-million fortune and resurfaced old, previously debunked speculation of infidelity that romantically linked the actor to his “Suicide Squad” costar Margot Robbie and the actress to her “HawthoRNe” costar Marc Anthony.
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Gossip Cop was the first site to shut down the report after consulting an “impeccable Smith family source” who said that rumors of an end-of-summer split announcement were simply “not true.”
Smith met Pinkett Smith in 1994 while shooting his long-running NBC sitcom; she auditioned to be his love interest Lisa Wilkes, a role that eventually went to Nia Long. Still, they became friends, dated, then wed on Dec. 31, 1997.
The A-listers have two children together: batsuit-wearing son Jaden, 17, and “Whip My Hair”-singing daughter Willow, 14. The “Men in Black” star also has a son nicknamed Trey from his previous marriage to Sheree Zampino.
Both actors have been dogged by wandering-eye and open-marriage rumors for years.
In April, Smith paid homage to his wife at BET’s “Black Girls Rock” special by recounting a time when he saw a TMZ report claiming that his wife had filed for divorce.
“In that brief moment my heart jumped for a second,” the “Bad Boys” actor said. “And I started to imagine what my life would’ve been like without that woman, you know? And we’ve been together for 20 years.... As I thought what my life would be like and what the world would be like without her it made me sad, and I’m just standing here today happy that TMZ had it wrong.”
In June, the “Magic Mike XXL” actress spoke about the infidelity rumors during an interview with Howard Stern.
“You’ve got to trust who you’re with,” Pinkett Smith said. “And at the end of the day, I’m not here to be anybody’s watcher. I’m not his watcher. He’s a grown man.”
She also told the Associated Press that her role in the stripper film taught her how to be more playful with her husband.
“[I] learned to enjoy that playfulness in him much more and participate in it versus, like, tolerate it.”
Follow me on Twitter @NardineSaad.
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