Jada Pinkett Smith Got Emotional Over Will Smith’s Reaction To Her Book Worthy

The public has gotten a look inside Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s marriage in the lead-up to her new memoir, Worthy. While the biggest bombshell dropped so far has been the A-list couple’s seven-year separation, each stop on the Matrix Resurrections star’s publicity tour has brought another fascinating detail fans never knew. The most recent came in a clip from Pinkett Smith’s upcoming appearance on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, where she revealed “why [she] can’t divorce that joker.”

In the clip, host Jay Shetty reads a letter that Smith wrote to his wife about her memoir. “I applaud and honor you,” the actor began, per Shetty. “If I had read this book 30 years ago, I definitely would have hugged you more. I’ll start now.”

His message went on to welcome Pinkett Smith to “the authors’ club,” before he added, “I love you endlessly.” Finally, Smith ended on a light note: “Now go get some Merlot and take a rest.”

Pinkett Smith, who is sober due to past issues with alcohol, immediately broke into laughter and shut down the idea of having a glass of wine. Then she got serious. “That’s beautiful,” she said, looking moved. “That’s why I can’t divorce that joker.”

State Of Their Union

The snippet from Pinkett Smith’s upcoming chat with Shetty shows there’s still a lot of love between the husband and wife of nearly two decades. Still, as she explained to Today’s Hoda Kotb in a one-on-one interview promoting Worthy, they “live separately” and became “just exhausted with trying.” They’ve kept up the appearances of being together because they were “still trying to figure out … how to be a partnership.”

Even now, the couple doesn’t have the answers. “We’re still figuring it out,” she recently told People. “We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together.”

Estranged Love

Divorce doesn’t seem to be on the horizon for the couple. Pinkett Smith’s On Purpose with Jay Shetty interview shows her affection for her husband is still a powerful force, and she told Kotb that she’s been determined not to take that final dividing step. “I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce; we will work through whatever,” she said. “And I just haven’t been able to break that promise.”

Their kids — Jaden, 25, and Willow, 22, plus Trey, 30, from Smith’s first marriage — are part of that for Pinkett Smith. “We wanted to create a family we never had, and we did that. And we enjoy our family,” she told The New York Times.

Worthy comes out on Tuesday, Oct. 17.