Jada Pinkett Smith confirms romance with August Alsina but says she and Will were separated at the time

Jada Pinkett Smith confirmed Friday that she had a romantic relationship with singer August Alsina but explained that it happened while she was separated from longtime husband Will Smith.

“We decided 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,” Will said on an episode of Jada’s Facebook Watch show Red Table Talk.

Jada had previously denied through her rep that she had a relationship with Alsina, after he said they did on an episode of The Breakfast Club. “I actually sat down with Will and had a conversation due to the transformation from their marriage to life partnership, that they have spoken on several times, not involving romanticism,” he said. “He actually gave me his blessing.” Alsina said he had “lost money, friendships and relationships” because people thought he had done something wrong in romancing Jada. He had also endured serious heartbreak.

The actress now explained that when she met Alsina about four years ago, they were initially just “really, really good friends.” In fact, Alsina was close with the entire Smith family, and he turned to them while struggling with addiction.

During the same period, Jada noted, she and Will, her husband since 1997, were “going through a really difficult time.”

Will then joked, “I was done with your a**.”

At one point, Will joked that he felt like the husband standing by his wife during the press conference.

Jada said she understood that, but she didn’t believe she had done anything wrong.

“I definitely understand why it would look that way or feel that way, but I actually don’t look at it as a transgression at all,” she said. “Through that particular journey, I learned so much about myself and was able to really confront a lot of emotional immaturity, emotional insecurity, and I was really able to do some really deep healing. And as I came through and started to realize certain things about you and I, he decided to break all communication with me, which was totally understandable. And I let that be and hadn’t talked to him since, so it is a little weird that all this stuff is coming out now.”

Jada said she hadn’t spoken to “Aug” in a long time, but she empathized with him.

“What August was probably trying to communicate — but I could actually see how he would perceive it as permission [from Will], because we were separated amicably — and I think he also wanted to make it clear that he’s not a homewrecker, which he’s not.”

Will said that while some people might find it strange that the two of them were able to talk about their time apart, they’ve spent years talking through it in therapy and just in life.

They were only addressing the subject, they said, because of all the attention it was getting from others.

Both said their break had made their relationship stronger.

“There’s a real power in just knowing that somebody’s riding with you no matter what, and you really can’t know that until you go through some stuff,” Will said. “I don’t want to go through this no more.”

At the end of their RTT conversation, the two fist-bumped and jokingly exclaimed, “We ride together. We die together. Bad marriage for life,” a play off of the popular quote from Will’s Bad Boys movies.

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