How Will Smith’s exile after Oscars slap cost him $1 billion
The “sad truth” about Will Smith’s marriage to his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, has been laid bare.
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As Will Smith launched his big musical comeback with a spoof Matrix video, he declared: “I really like my life right now.”
That comes as a surprise, considering the disastrous three years the Fresh Prince has endured.
Ever since the actor and rapper jumped on to the stage and gave comedian Chris Rock a slap at the Oscars in March 2022, Will’s life and career has seemingly been on a downward spiral.
His split from wife Jada Pinkett Smith was played out in public, with the actress admitting to seeing another man.
Meanwhile, big-budget slavery movie Emancipation, for which he was reportedly paid $US56 million, sunk without a trace.
On top of that, the fallout from the Oscars debacle meant he missed out on a billion-dollar deal, and the Smiths’ production company Westbrook has been forced to lay off staff.
Will, who won an Oscar for 2021 tennis biopic King Richard, is said to still be angry that he copped so much flak for the attack on Rock, who had made a cruel joke about Jada’s alopecia.
The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air star, who dominated the box office during the late 1990s and much of the early Noughties with blockbusters such as Men In Black and Independence Day, is building towards a comeback.
Not only is Will, 56, releasing his first album in 20 years, he also has movie projects in the pipeline.
These include a possible sequel to 2007 hit I Am Legend and a remake of the 1987 Christmas classic Planes, Trains And Automobiles.
And last night his comeback continued when he was invited to be a co-presenter at the high-profile Grammy music awards.
But an insider told The Sun that the reason Will and Jada, 53, appear to still be together is because they cannot afford to divorce each other at the moment.
They said: “They’re still together on paper, but at this point the talk is that it’s more of a business arrangement than an emotional connection.”
“The two companies they’re attached to serve as a vehicle for most of their money-making endeavours and it would most likely need to be split up or totally revamped if they were to put a formal end to the marriage.”
“That is just not something that they have wanted to do.”
“For logistical purposes it’s been more convenient for them to keep the status quo and do their own things in different places for the better part of five years.”
Before the moment Will’s “nice guy” reputation was turned on its head in front of millions of people watching the Oscars on TV, his life appeared to be perfect.
There was talk of the Smiths selling their production company for a billion dollars.
Jada’s Red Table Talk show was a hit on Facebook and they had remade Bel-Air as a new TV series follow-up to the nineties sitcom favourite.
Their children, Jaden, 26, and Willow, 24, had both launched successful showbiz careers and Will had rightfully received critical acclaim for his performance in King Richard, where he played the father of tennis greats Serena and Venus Williams.
But once the world had seen the normally mild-mannered actor as Mr Angry, another reality was revealed.
It was as if the red pill from the sci-fi movie The Matrix had been swallowed.
Afterwards it came out that Jada and Will had been living separate lives for six years.
The loving spouse act was, it turns out, a sham.
Jada told The Sunday Times in 2023: “We hadn’t called each other husband and wife since 2016.”
During a Red Table Talk chat in 2020 she had already confessed to an “entanglement” with R & B singer August Alsina, who she met in 2015, but everyone thought the marriage had survived.
She also made it clear that Will was totally responsible for his own actions at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles three years ago.
Jada, 53, said: “People thought I gave Will a look and ‘made’ him do it. But let me start with this: Nobody can make Will Smith do anything, and surely not me.”
Will was said to be hurt by such comments.
Given all that marital tension, it is surprising the couple have not got divorced — particularly as they have been living in separate homes for the past couple of years.
Yet they were seen wrapping their arms around each in November after dining at a restaurant in Calabasas, California.
Two years ago Jada said: “We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got a deep love for each other, and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”
A source recently told People magazine in the US that they “haven’t completely severed ties”.
But Will is said to be more keen on bringing in the lawyers and making a clean break.
A different insider told another publication: “He knows he needs to be strategic as there’s $652 million on the line. But he’s hurt and angry. He wants to divorce and end the charade.”
The potential sale of their company Westbrook fell through after the attack on Chris Rock, and according to the online news outlet Semafor, they had to let go of half their staff in 2023.
If he is going to reinvent himself, the actor needs to escape his past dramas.
Prolonging the Jada and Will on/off romance would not help that.
It would also make sense to draw a line under the Oscars slap.
Yet, Will keeps coming back to it. Last week when rapper Big Sean and Will launched their new single Beautiful Scars on Instagram, the pair made a joke about the incident.
Big Sean said: “We’re not going to focus on that one.”
The lyrics to the song also appear to reference the scandal: “Life is confusing, I hate when I lose it, but I face the music, Go, ‘Why did he do it?’ See I’m only human.”
Another factor getting in the way of any reconciliation between the Smiths is Will’s work schedule.
He is releasing an album called Based On A True Story next month and will be going on a world tour from May until September.
Will has already performed a couple of sold-out shows in San Diego.
But none of the singles from the album have been chart hits so far.
It is unlikely he is going to achieve the success he did with DJ Jazzy Jeff in the early 90s with such tracks as Summertime.
Yet Will said the advice from his daughter was not to go after chart-toppers.
He explained: “Willow kept telling me, ‘Dad, don’t try to make hits, just make what you think and feel and if it’s a hit, it’s a hit. If it’s not, it’s not. Focus on expression and not trying to have it land in a certain way’.”
Will’s action movie Bad Boys: Ride Or Die did well enough at the box office last year for another one to be possible.
It was a particular success in Saudi Arabia, where Will has been pursuing opportunities recently.
The insider told The Sun: “Will continues to hustle for opportunities, which have been way harder for him to come by post SlapGate.”
“He did have a hit with the recent Bad Boys sequel and there are folk out in Saudi and other parts of the world who have written him healthy cheques and funded his various investment opportunities.”
But like other shamed stars before him, such as Mel Gibson, it will take some time before Will is truly accepted again by Hollywood.
Planes, Trains And Automobiles as well as I Am Legend 2 would require a big budget to go into production and no major studio seems willing to do that at the moment.
Will might have to get the funding together himself for future projects.
According to the insider, many actors, actresses and directors are yet to forgive Will for slapping Chris.
They revealed: “As far as his social life goes, he’s very much like Tom Cruise in that he only really relates to ultra-famous people like himself.
“And the harsh reality is that very few of those A-list types have expressed much support towards him after ‘the slap’.
“He still has friends in town but a lot of those social opportunities don’t come his way any more because people are wary of being associated with him.”
It is that lack of support which really hurts the Hollywood mogul, who clearly wants to prove the doubters wrong. Our source added: “It’s something that still stings for Will, big time.”
This story originally appeared on The Sun and is republished here with permission
Originally published as How Will Smith’s exile after Oscars slap cost him $1 billion
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