Jada Pinkett Smith explains what separation from Will actually means

Jada Pinkett Smith has explained what her separation from Will actually means, following a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in headlines about the status of their relationship.

Jada revealed that she and Will - her husband of more than two decades - have actually been secretly separated for years.

"We’re still figuring it out," Jada told People in an interview to tie in with her new autobiography, Worthy.

"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."

She later suggested in another interview that they’re not really separated.

Speaking to the Today show earlier this week, Jada explained: "There's no finding another great love, and I think that's the point.

"It's like we are in a place now that we are in a deep, healing space. And we are really concentrating on healing the relationship between us.

"There's no divorce on paper. We really have been working hard. That's the whole thing. We are working very hard at bringing our relationship together. Back to a life partnership."

Jada said of Will: “He can't be this perfect, ideal guy husband. I have to be able to accept him for the human that he is, (and) he accepts me for the human that I am. And we want to love each other there."

Host Hoda Kotb replied: “Oh! Okay. Well, I didn’t know that.”

Jada went on: “That's the point I was trying to tell you. You totally missed that. That's the whole thing.”

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When Hoda asked if ‘there might not be a divorce in theory anymore’, Jada responded: “Yeah. No. We really have been working hard.”

Naturally, it's left quite a few people scratching their heads.

However, she dives into more detail in the book, explaining what the separation actually means for their marriage and relationship in real terms.

“I’d always pledged to myself that if we were really going to end our marriage, we would do so with an amicable partnership to keep together the family we both valued,” she said.

“We’d have to work as members of the same team. There had to be a way to lovingly uncouple without being put under the microscope of the world.

“In other words, we would choose to divorce without divorcing. That is, to split up, to separate on our own terms, without legal interference.”

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Jada went on: “So, at the end of 2016, Will and I looked each other in the eyes and decided to separate in every way except legally.

“For us, what mattered most was mutual agreement and informing the children of our separation. We would remain family-strong, not lose our friendship, and maintain our policy of complete transparency - I.e., no secrets about what we were doing and whom we were doing it with.”

She added: “We didn’t believe we owed the public any specifics, which was, without a doubt, a slippery slope.”