Jada Pinkett Smith’s recent revelations about her tumultuous marriage to Will Smith have been mocked in a skit on Saturday Night Live.
During the latest episode of the NBC comedy show, Michael Che interviewed comedian Ego Nwodim, who was in character as Pinkett Smith, as the pair poked fun at the talk show host’s recent publicity tour to promote her new memoir.
“Sorry if I seem a little tired, I’ve been on the Today show 14 times in three days,” Nwodim said as Pinkett Smith.
Mocking the often contradictory public messaging the Smiths routinely share about their relationship, Nwodim said: “The day we got married, I knew there was going to be trouble. At our wedding, someone stood up and objected.”
When asked who that person was, Nwodim quipped: “It was me. Yeah, it was me.”
The comedian continued to make digs at the couple’s decades-long marriage – and Pinkett Smith’s tendency to overshare about the highs and lows of their relationship – by joking that they had discovered the secret to marriage.
Nwodim said: “23 years later, Will and I are still a unit. And it’s because we have learned that the secret to a successful marriage is never go to bed happy.”
Ego Nwodim as Jada Pinkett Smith during ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit— (Saturday Night Live)
Nwodim went on to joke that her relationship with the King Richard actor was “in a solid, fortified place” after “publicly cucking [her] millionaire husband”.
The joke was a reference to Pinkett Smith’s relationship with singer August Alsina, who in 2020 claimed that Smith had given “his blessing” for him to have a relationship with Pinkett Smith.
Asked why she did not get a divorce during such turbulent times, Nwodim said divorce is “not an option”.
“If we got divorced, he could mess around and end up happy. And I can’t have that. And I just can’t have that,” Nwodim quipped.
The sketch follows Pinkett Smith’s ongoing publicity campaign to promote her recently released memoir Worthy, during which she has divulged previously unknown details about her relationship with the Fresh Prince of Bell-Air actor
In an interview with People, Pinkett Smith revealed that while the pair are not legally divorced, they have been living separately since 2016.
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith photographed in November 2022— (AFP via Getty Images)
Pinkett Smith emphasised in the interview that her husband has always maintained the idea that “divorce is not an option”.
In an appearance on the Today show last week, Pinkett Smith told host Hoda Kotb that she and Smith were “working hard” towards reconciliation and “concentrating on healing”.
Smith married Jada Pinkett in 1997 after divorcing actor Sheree Zampino two years earlier.
They first met after Pinkett Smith auditioned for a role as the girlfriend of Smith’s character’s on the Nineties series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Together, they share three children: Jaden, 25, Willow, 22, and Trey, 30, whom Smith had with his first wife, Zampino.
Will and Jada photographed in February 2022— (Getty Images for WarnerMedia)
In 2013, rumours that the couple have been in an open relationship began circulating after Pinkett Smith told The Huffington Post in 2013: “Will is his own man. I’m here as his partner, but he is his own man.”
Two years later, Pinkett Smith told Howard Stern: “At the end of the day, I’m not here to be anybody’s watcher. I trust that Will is a man of integrity. So, he’s got all the freedom in the world.”
Pinkett Smith later wrote on her Facebook page: “Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so. This does NOT mean we have an open relationship... this means we have a GROWN one.”
In 2020, singer August Alsina claimed Smith had given “his blessing” for him to have a relationship with Pinkett Smith.
The couple then appeared on an episode of Pinkett Smith’s talk show Red Table Talk where she confirmed that she was involved in an “entanglement” with Alsina, revaling that she and Smith were “separated amicably” at the time.
“We decided that we were going to separate for a period of time and you go figure out how to make yourself happy and I’ll figure out how to make myself happy,” Pinkett Smith said.
“From there, as time went on, I got into a different kind of entanglement with August... Yes, it was a relationship absolutely.”
Pinkett Smith said that her husband did not give her permission to embark on the relationship with Alsina, as the only person who could give her permission to do so was herself.
