Jada Pinkett Smith shocked the world when she revealed her past “entanglement” with singer August Alsina while still married to Will Smith. In her memoir, Worthy, the actress, 52, explains that she “fell into an entanglement” with the much-younger August, now 31, after she and Will, 55, separated in 2016. She reveals how her relationship with August developed and sets the record straight about his connection to Jada’s son, Jaden Smith.
“For the record, my partner in the entanglement (entangled, if you will) was not, as it would be said a lot, my son’s best friend,” Jada writes. “When we met, he was not shy about expressing how he was suffering from depression, unresolved grief, and, later, issues with his health. I wanted to help, and since we both had suffered enormous amounts of loss, we met there. This is how a friendship unfolded that, much later, and very unexpectedly, turned romantic.”
Jada opened up about her “entanglement” with August in a sit-down interview with Will on Red Table Talk in July 2020. At that point, the “entanglement” had already come to an end.
“When it ran its course, I decided to step away with the intention of remaining friends, while continuing to be supportive,” Jada says about her relationship with August. “But in de-entangling, there can be bruised feelings. He may have assumed that I was going back to my marriage, when that was not the case. In any event, he made the choice to sever communications with me, which I chose to respect.”
Jada and Will, who married in 1997, were already separated when their Red Table Talk interview about August took place, but they didn’t disclose that to the public. Jada reveals in her book that Will was the one who offered to come on the show and discuss the August situation. “I understood that the situation was humiliating for him, and that was never my intention,” she says.
Looking back, Jada admits that she and Will were not “all equipped for that conversation at that time.” It wouldn’t be until years later that Jada revealed crucial context about her relationship with Will and her “entanglement.”
Leading up to her memoir’s release, Jada confirmed that she and Will had been separated since 2016. Despite living “completely separate lives,” Jada and Will are not planning on getting a legal divorce. “I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce. We will work through whatever, and I just haven’t been able to break that promise,” she said on NBC News.