It's almost impossible to think about Will Smith without also thinking about Jada Pinkett Smith,
but did you know he was married before? And did you also know that he felt that divorce
was 'not an option?' So, how did it all go wrong? Here's the inside scoop on Will Smith's divorce.
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have always had intertwined worlds with Sheree Zampino's,
even if they weren't always aware of it. They were so connected that Will's introduction to
Sheree began with his infatuation with Jada. Will saw Jada on an episode of the 80s sitcom
A Different World, and he just had to meet her. So he arranged for a set visit through
his The Fresh Prince of Bel Air co-star Alfonso Ribiero. But that's when things got twisted.
Will ended up getting onto the set the same day Sheree was there visiting her friend and
show writer Orlando Jones, who ironically was supposed to introduce Will to Jada. But Sheree
told Hollywood Unlocked that Will ended up getting her number from a different acquaintance of Jones
and the two began dating. They eventually married and had their first child, Trey.
In an episode of Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk, Will
admitted he went to A Different World to meet Jada but he instead:
"Met Sheree and ended up marrying Sheree and having Trey with Sheree."
Will added:
"I didn't meet Jada that day. We had all these near misses."
Jada Pinkett was always the one Will Smith wanted and he ended up falling for her while
he was still married to Sheree Zampino. Will and Jada finally met on the set of
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and started dating while he was still in wedlock,
something Pinkett says she regrets doing. In a 2018 interview with Access, Jada says:
"He was 'div', the 'orced' hadn't happened yet."
Will later revealed on Red Table Talk that he was unable to act on his attraction and,
quote, "broke down in tears" in a restaurant bathroom while at dinner with Sheree one night.
He stated he had a revelation that he was supposed to be with Jada and not Sheree.
Although Will didn't believe in divorce, Sheree didn't share the same sentiment. She
decided to file for divorce on Valentine's Day in 1995, telling Will she no longer loved him.
Years later, Sheree opened up years later in a 2016 Facebook video, stating:
"Our marriage ended because we were so young. ... It's just a
lot of responsibility. Marriage is not easy. Especially at that age."
During Will Smith's three year marriage to Sheree Zampino, his schedule was setting him
off to be one of the biggest names in Hollywood. Smith was already the star of a wildly popular
sitcom and was about to launch a burgeoning film career with blockbusters like Bad Boys,
Men In Black and Independence Day. If Will Smith wasn't a household name at the start
of his marriage to Sheree, he definitely was not long after it. By the late 2000s,
he was declared, quote, "Hollywood's most bankable star" by Forbes.
Sheree later explained the increased estrangement in a Facebook video, stating:
"Will was becoming bigger and bigger with his career. I'm becoming smaller
and smaller and smaller and we didn't have the tools to make it work."
She elaborated in an interview with Hollywood Unlocked:
"I think at that point in time with Will's career taking off - to start now making movies,
of course he had the TV show, the rapping - he didn't have the capacity
to give me what I needed. ... I didn't feel like a team."
One thing Sheree Zampino wanted to make clear was that there was no
infidelity on her or Will Smith's part in their marriage ending.
But the claim was contradicted by the late actress Alexis Arquette in a 2016 Facebook post,
in which she claimed Zampino was paid to keep quiet after catching Smith in the act
with his then-manager Benny Medina. Arquette further alleged that Smith, quote, "threw a fit
on the set of [Six Degrees of Separation]" over a kissing scene with another male actor and
seemed to be Arquette's way of verifying alleged homophobia that plagued Smith early in his career.
But Zampino addressed Arquette directly, stating:
"I left because I was unhappy; it's really that simple."
Both Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have also confirmed that there
was no affair while he was still married.
In June 2020, Will Smith sat down to talk with Jada Pinkett Smith about his
time with Sheree Zampino in a special Father's Day episode of Red Table Talk.
In the emotional chat, Will admitted that getting divorced from his first
wife represented ultimate failure at the time. Will told Jada:
" I don't think anything touches the failure of getting divorced
from my two year old son's mother."
The effects of his divorce were felt in his relationship with his son Trey Smith,
which Will says he struggled for years to build a solid foundation.
In a November 2018 Instagram post, he captioned:
"It has not always been like this between Trey & I. We STRUGGLED FOR YEARS after my
divorce from his mother. He felt betrayed & abandoned. It is a wild
blessing to recover & restore a loving relationship with my beautiful son."
It seems Will's goal was to always ensure his family felt tight-knit and loved,
and repairing his relationship with his son was a step in the right direction.
One of the more fascinating aspects of the Smith household is how they have managed to work in a
co-parenting arrangement with Sheree Zampino. Trey Smith even refers to Jada as his, quote,
"bonus mom." Jada and Will's children, Jaden and Willow Smith, also have a close relationship
with Sheree, having spent a lot of time with her throughout their lives. The blended family even
travels and spends birthdays and holidays together. But this wasn't always the case.
When Sheree was Jada's first Red Table Talk guest,
the two women reminisced about when things weren't so friendly. Jada addressed the awkwardness,
asking Sheree if she recalled a phone conversation that turned into a full on fight.
Sheree had called looking to talk to her then three-year-old son Trey, but Jada answered and
proceeded to tell Sheree she didn't like her tone and hung up on her. Sheree told Jada:
"I happened to say,
quote, 'B---h, you living in the house I picked out,' and you said, 'It's my house now."
Things got so heated between the two that Will had to step in. Jada explained:
"Will Smith let me have it!"
She explained that Will had stated it was Trey's mother and it was not Pinkett's place.
At the start of their Red Table Talk chat,
Jada Pinkett Smith confessed to Sheree Zampino by stating:
"Here's the one thing I will say in hindsight: Because I didn't understand marriage,
I didn't understand divorce. I will say that I probably should've fell back.
When I think back about where I was, some of my insensitivity, some of my inconsideration
just in regards to you guys unwinding a marriage, and then me, trying to get in there."
Sheree even admitted that Jada was always willing to apologize when her stubbornness
caused issues. The two later broke down in tears when Sheree said the
hardest part of their relationship was when Will first introduced Trey to Jada,
something she was initially against. But as time went on, she said about the situation:
"I'll tell you,
on this side of things, my son could not have a better bonus mom. Thank you Ree. No thank you."
The two got reconnected again for an episode of Ask Jada LIVE: Blended Families, to give tips
on how to address co-parenting issues. One of the more important tips came from Sheree:
"You have to be secured and settled in the fact
that no one can replace you as a mom - your position is solid."
The blended family of Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Sheree Zampino is
clearly setting new standards for co-parenting and family dynamics.
In an interview on Sway's Universe, Jada revealed that she is not always present
during vacations that Will takes with Sheree and their son Trey. She explains
that it is important for Trey to see positive interactions between his parents by stating:
"If I'm going to love Trey, there's an aspect of Sheree that I have to embrace
and have to love as well - consider and respect."
Jada also stated they are all a family. She stated about Will:
"All that 'relationship' and 'what people think ideas of a husband and a partner and all that,'
man, whatever... That's a man that can rely on me for the rest of his life, period."
She further elaborated on Today, revealing:
"Through my journey, I learned to love [Will] in the most pure way and love
everything that comes with that, and he's learning to do the same."
For most marriages, divorce is the end, but it looks like divorce was
the very beginning in a life of highs and lows for Will Smith and Sheree Zampino.
We're all watching to see how the next chapter in their complicated relationship unfolds.
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