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Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s marriage has been at the recieving end of a lot of public scrutiny over the years, with longstanding rumors insisting the pair had an open marriage.
While the couple has since denied those musings about their marriage, they did let fans in on a very intimate time in their union when the Girls Trip actress was in a relationship with someone else.
In July 2020, Jada centered an episode of her series The Red Table Talk around herself to reveal that she had a relationship with R&B singer August Alsina while separated from her husband. Of course, that admission opened the couple up to a lot of scrutiny, which seemingly contributed to Will Smith’s eventual outburst at the 2022 Oscars.
For anyone who missed a chapter or just wants to catch up on the intricaies within Will’s relationship with Jada, or Jada’s relationship with August, check out the complete timeline down below:
1994
Will and Jada met on the set of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1994, when Jada auditioned to play Smith’s girlfriend on the show. Though she ultimately lost the part to Nia Long, the connection they made was significant--even though Smith was married to actress Sheree Zampino at the time.
© GettyImagesLater that same year, Will and Jada begin dating. Both Will and Jada maintain they began seeing each other after Smith and his wife separated.
1995
Will and his first wife Sheree officially got divorced on December 10, 1995. They share one son together, Trey.
1997
Two years later, on December 31, 1997, Will and Jada got married in her hometown of Baltimore on New Year’s Eve. In a PEOPLE coverstory in 2019, Pinkett Smith revealed she never wanted to tie the knot, but got pressured to do so by her mother after getting pregnant.
© Will Smith1998
Will and Jada’s first child together, Jaden Smith, was born on July 8, 1998.
2000
Their second child, Willow Smith, was born on October 31, 2000.
2011
More than ten years later, on August 23, 2011, Will and Jada released a joint statement to combat rumors that the sctress was dating her Hawthorne co-star (and Jennifer Lopez’s husband at the time) Marc Anthony.
© GettyImages2013
A couple years later, in August 2013, Jada took to Facebook to address an ongoing rumor, denying that she and Will have an open marriage.
“Will and I BOTH can do WHATEVER we want, because we TRUST each other to do so,” she wrote at the time. “This does NOT mean we have an open relationship…this means we have a GROWN one.”
That same year, rumors surface that Will Smith had an affair with Margot Robbie while filming their 2015 film, Focus. While those rumors have persisted over the years, Neither Robbie nor Smith have ever addressed them directly.
© GettyImages2015
In July 2015, Jada attended the Wireless Festival in London to support Jaden and Willow, who were both performing. That’s where she met August Alsina for the first time.
Only a month later, Will took to Facebook to address rumors that he and Jada were headed toward divorce, refering to Jada as “his queen.” Jada responded by going on Twitter and simply saying, “My king has spoken.”
2017
On June 25, 2017, Jada and August attended the BET Awards together.
Just a month after her public appearance with Alsina, Jada went on Watch What Happens Live! and says the craziest rumor she’s ever heard about her and Will is that they’re swingers.
Her response? “It’s constant. And I’m like, ‘yo, I wish. I wish.’”
2018
A year later, in July 2018, August Alsina takes a seat with Jada at the Red Table to discuss his issues with alcohol, sex, and drug addiction. Pinkett Smith introduced the musician as “a dear family friend.”
2019
In April 2019, August dropped a music video for his remix to Kehlani’s “Nunya.”
In the video, he’s texting someone named “Koren <3” which is Jada’s middle name. Plus, the lyrics speak for themselves.
© August Alsina“You got me feeling like it was an act, you’re just an actress / Putting on a show ’cause you don’t want the world to know / That you lost a man who loved you all along / Baby, couldn’t we just let this go?”
At the time, he denied the lyrics were about Pinkett Smith.
2020
Jada’s relationship with August begins to go public in June 2020, when Alsina sat down with The Breakfast Club’s Angela Yee and claimed that he “gave years of his life” to Jada in a romantic relationship with Will Smith’s blessing. Later that same day, reps for Jada called Alsina’s claims “absolutely not true.”
About two weeks later, Jada took to The Red Table Talk to confirm that she had an “entanglement” with August, though he denies that Will ever gave his blessing. She says they were separated at the time.
That same month, August released a song called “Entanglements,” getting to the core of his heartbreak over Jada.
“That ain’t my girl, but I got they key to the crib and to the car,” he says in the song. “You left your man just to f**k with me and break his heart.”
2022
Fast forward to March 27, 2022, when Will Smith made headlines for slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars. Of course, the slap happened after the comedian joked about Jada’s bald head, which Smith responded to by insisting he “Get my wife’s name out your f***ing mouth.”
With the Jada and Will all over the news, August Alsina couldn’t help but insert himself into the situation. On April 5, he released a song titled “Shake the World,” which seemingly references their relationship.
On the song, he references a famous Beyoncé line, saying, “I heard it’s some s**t that’s bound to go down when you got a billion dollars on the elevator / Well of course some s**t was bound to go down when you tangled up with the world’s favorite.”
The next day, August denied rumors he was nearing a book deal about his time with Jada.
Aaaand that’s the full timeline. For now.
