The Oprah Conversation — Will Smith On His Marriage to Jada | Apple TV+

until today... if we start talking... it's four hours. It's-it's-it's four hours if we exchange a sentence. -Actually? -Yes, and it's like it's the center of why we've been able to sustain each other and, you know, why we're still together, without suffocating the life out of each other. It's like the ability to solve problems... Yeah. Um... I've never... I've never met another person that I connect with in

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more, um... happily and productively than Jada. Well. I'm not even going to go to the big party you threw for him... you all read about it here in Will... where you laid out the red carpet, had all the friends and da-da-da.

And then everyone broke up, literally... I think that's what really drove... there was already a gap, but that 40th birthday party was the final moment where you said you were going to... you weren't going to anymore. be in a relationship where you were trying to make her happy. -Yeah. -So how long were you really separated? We never knew how long. Was it months or years? You know, it's a lot of fun. We don't... Actually, we never liked officially breaking up. -UH Huh. -Good? Um... what happened was we realized that it was a... it was a fantasy illusion that we could make each other happy.

Hmm. And we agreed that... she had to make herself happy and I had to make myself happy. And then we were going to introduce ourselves again to the relationship already happy... Mm-hmm. Instead of demanding that the other person fill our empty cup. -Hmm. -Know? Actually, that should be the prerequisite for anyone... -Yes. -Get marry. Absolutely. It's like, um... Come to me whole. Don't come to me with half of you broken and expect me to... -And demand that I... -fix all the pieces. To fill, the problem is that when you come like this, the cup actually has a hole in the bottom.

Good. So you pour all your good love in there and it goes to the ground. Because here you have two broken people. You've got two broken people and that's what we're doing, you know? So there was... you know, we just decided that you have to figure out how to be happy, you know? And it was a little more controversial on my part. I was like, "You know what? Go find out. "Go find out if you can be happy and show me that it's even possible." -Mm-hmm. -Right? Without thinking about yourself. Yeah, and me. .. yes. I

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, and... -Yes, you

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And you say: "Our time apart helped us both discover the power of loving in freedom. We are simultaneously one hundred percent united and one hundred percent free. We agreed that we were both imperfect people and doing our best to figure out how to be in this world with joy." What does it mean to love freely? The simple idea is... You love freely with everyone except your partner. ...right? Your kids are going away to college and you're going to wait for them to come back, and they might not be able to come back this Christmas and, you know, you're going to let them go - there's a certain fluidity to your interactions, right? ...it's friendship versus marital prison.