Jada Pinkett Smith says Chris Rock asked her on date amid rumours she and Will were separated

Jada Pinkett Smith has said Chris Rock once asked her out on a date as rumours began to circulate that she and Will were separated.

Jada married Will back in 1997, going on to have two children – Jaden and Willow – with Will, who also has a son from a previous relationship, 30-year-old Trey.

However, in a new interview with People, she revealed that she and Will have actually been secretly separated for years.

"We’re still figuring it out," Jada explained.

"We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us."

Jada delivered the bombshell ahead of the release of her new autobiography Worthy, which is out on 17 October.

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The book promises to ‘spare no details’ on Jada’s life as she shares an ‘intimate conversation with readers’, answering questions about ‘her difficult childhood, her marriage, her parenting style, her career choices, and the intense scrutiny that followed "the slap"’ - the latter of which rocked the world as her husband Will struck comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars, following a joke he made at the expense of Jada.

Speaking to People, Jada claimed Chris actually once asked her out on a date, having heard rumours that she and Will were about to break up.

“I think every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce,” she said.

“And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce. So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He was like, ‘Well, aren’t you and Will getting a divorce?'”

She continued: “I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologized, and that was that.”

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A rep for Chris did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment; Tyla has also reached out for comment.

Jada also said that, directly after the slap, Chris came off the stage to speak to her when there was a pause in the live broadcast.

“Chris came down to the end of the stage and tried to apologize to me,” she recalled.

“He said, ‘I didn't mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can't talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s**t.’

“I thought this was [about] the Oscar 2016 and … their stuff that they had before I even came into the picture in the late ‘80s.

“I’ve got to leave that to Will and Chris to talk about, but they got their stuff for sure.”

Jada also explained how she thought they’d moved on from the 2016 incident, as he’d called her at some point that year to say sorry.

“He apologized and I apologized to him as well,” she said.

“So I actually thought that we were good, that the hatchet was buried between us. And we hadn't talked since then, until 2022 came.”