Gay? Swingers? Jada Pinkett Smith Separates Truth from Rumor about Marriage to Will Smith

Jada Pinkett Smith opened up to Hoda Kotb about her marriage to Will Smith, which has been the focus of the rumor mill. Claims that one or both of them are gay, and that they are swingers, have swirled.

Pinkett Smith sought to dispel the falsehoods and provide the facts, telling Kotb in an Oct. 13 interview on an NBC news special that while it's true the two of them have been quietly living apart for the last seven years, the rest is pure invention.

Entertainment Weekly reported on the interview, quoting Hotb as saying, "'They're in an open marriage, they're swingers, he's gay, she's gay.' I mean a million things were out there. What, if anything, is true and did hearing all that stuff bother you?"

Pinkett Smith quashed the prurient fantasies, saying that "none of that's true."

"I definitely can understand why there'd be misunderstandings," she told the "Today" host, "but none of it's true."

Even so, EW recalled, Pinkett Smith had admitted to what she called in "entanglement" with singer August Alsina on an episode of the talk show she co-hosts, Red Table Talk, in 2020 (the singer responded by putting out a song he titled "Entanglements").

EW went on to note that Will Smith has offered his own take, telling GQ in 2021, "that though monogamy was a route they 'chose' for a large part of their relationship, it remained an ongoing discussion."

"Marriage for us can't be a prison," Smith told the magazine, adding that "the freedoms that we've given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love."

As previously reported, Pinkett Smith revealed the couple's separation to Kotb, news of which hit early when a clip from the interview was released on Oct. 11. Asked by Kotb why they chose to live apart – but not divorce – the "Matrix" franchise actor explained, "That's a lot of things, and I think by the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying."

Added the "A Different World" star: "I think we were both stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be."

But despite that, she said, there isn't a divorce on the horizon. "We love our family," she told Kotb. "And we love each other. It's more of a life partnership."

A life partnership that comes complete with what some view as gallantry, while others disagree: Smith famously reacted to Chris Rock making a joke about Pinkett Smith during the 94th Academy Awards ceremony in 2022 by jumping up on stage and slapping the comic across the face. After striding back to his seat, Smith shouted at Rock: "Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth!"

Smith subsequently resigned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was hit with a 10-year ban on attending any of the Academy's events.

Speaking of a decade hence: "Now, 10 years from now, Hoda, who knows?" Pinkett Smith added, after saying the couple has no plans for a legal dissolution of their marriage.

"Pinkett Smith also has a memoir, 'Worthy,' out on Oct. 17," the Associated Press reported, "which promises more details about their lives and relationship, as well as her upbringing in Baltimore."