Jada Pinkett Smith Took A Unique Approach To Calming Her Fears About Marriage

There were signs that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's marriage was never as it seemed, with one major red flag being that Pinkett Smith did not want to get married at all. In her new memoir "Worthy," Pinkett Smith recounts telling Smith that she was pregnant, and he proposed shortly after. Marriage concerned her because "I'd been in the world enough to know how husbands and wives take each other for granted — far more than loving and appreciating each other. I did not want that. And I definitely wasn't ready to make a lifelong commitment under a spiritual contract with God" (via People).

To mentally prepare to take that big relationship step, the "Girls Trip" actor decided to get her own engagement ring. Doing so allowed her to ground herself and take, " ... some measure of control ... The ring was a statement that said to my fear: Get used to this now."

It's not unheard of for a woman in a heterosexual relationship to buy her own engagement ring. According to research published by De Beers Group in 2019, 14% of women in the U.S. did just that. Just five years prior, the percentage of women buying their own engagement rings was only 7%.

On a 2018 episode of Jada Pinkett Smith's talk show "Red Table Talk," she spoke with Will Smith, their daughter Willow Smith, and Pinkett Smith's mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris about her relationship with Will. Will explained he knew he'd have a connection with Pinkett Smith when he saw her on "A Different World," but the day he planned on meeting her, he instead met Sheree Zampino, his first wife.

Will and Pinkett Smith's relationship timeline is kind of shady, because he didn't want to get divorced from Zampino despite thinking Pinkett Smith was the woman for him. He acquiesced when Zampino filed for divorce and said she didn't love him anymore. As soon as he signed the divorce papers, Will gave Pinkett Smith a call, and she moved back to Hollywood for Will despite having bought a farm in Baltimore. Pinkett Smith was glad she got her kids from that choice, but she didn't shy away from expressing how distraught she was after realizing she was pregnant and how it would change her life. 

Will really wanted to get married and Pinkett Smith did not, and Banfield-Norris pushed them to. The pressure of her career and pregnancy overwhelmed Pinkett Smith who added, "I never wanted to be married." Banfield-Norris apologized for putting that pressure on her back then, and they reminisced about how Pinkett Smith struggled with morning sickness and emotional turmoil on the big day.

"And I was so upset that I had to have a wedding," Jada Pinkett Smith said on "Red Table Talk." "I was so pissed. I went crying down the freaking aisle. ... Cried the whole way." She said it's because she didn't "agree with the construct" of marriage — however, she and Will Smith are still together, but not without bumps along the road.

Pinkett Smith told Hoda Kotb that she and Smith had been separated since 2016 (via Today). However, despite having some kind of connection with August Alsina in the past, Pinkett Smith told People that she and Smith have never cheated on one another. Their feelings on monogamy are straightforward, because she also said they don't have an open marriage. 

The couple seems to be in a good place now, with Pinkett Smith saying on a TalkShopLive livestream that they've "been doing a lot of healing together, and have made our way back to this interdependence, you know. This beautiful loving space between us ... and we're family, and we're figuring it out. And it's a beautiful figuring it out." Smith is also incredibly supportive of Pinkett Smith's memoir, having published his own in 2021. At an event for "Worthy," Smith said, "Jada's the best friend I have ever had on this planet. And I am going to show up for her and support her for the rest of my life" (via USA Today).