Jada Pinkett Smith bought her own engagement ring so she could ‘get used to’ the idea of marrying Will Smith

• Jada Pinkett Smith said that she bought her own engagement ring after Will Smith proposed.
• Pinkett Smith said that the action gave her some control and was intended to prepare her for marriage.

Jada Pinkett Smith said that she bought her own engagement ring after Will Smith proposed to her so she could retain some control and prepare herself for marriage.

"I went to Harry Winston in Beverly Hills and bought my ring, a nice-sized pear-shaped diamond set in a platinum band," Pinkett Smith wrote in her new memoir, "Worthy," released on Tuesday. "By buying my own ring, I took some measure of control and sent the message to myself: All right, get with the program."

"A decade later, Will would completely outdo himself and buy me a 10-carat Graff diamond ring," she continued. "But in this moment, I had to move quickly to make it all real and concrete for my psyche. The ring was a statement that said to my fear: Get used to this now."

In "Worthy," Pinkett Smith detailed her childhood, Hollywood stardom, and relationship with Smith. The pair wed in 1997 and have two children together, son Jaden Smith and daughter Willow Smith, but Pinkett Smith never wanted to be married.

"My trepidation had nothing to do with Will — it had everything to do with my long-held belief that marriage wasn't for me," Pinkett Smith wrote, adding that at the time, her mom Adrienne Banfield had two failed marriages.

"My big predicament was being too scared to get married and just as scared not to get married," she said. "I was stuck."

After Pinkett Smith became pregnant with the couple's first child, her mom told her that she had to marry Smith.

Despite her resistance to the concept of marriage, she accepted Smith's proposal.

"Once I accepted that this tiny being inside me was having her or his way, and had chosen us as parents, I was able to listen to Will when he came to my side as I was resting on the chaise lounge I had put in his bedroom," she wrote. "As I was lying there, trying to ease my all-day pregnancy sickness, Will leaned in and proposed by saying there was no way I was going to have a baby without him marrying me."

"All I could do was cry," Pinket Smith. "His proposal was beautiful and sincere, but I was scared as hell."

When Pinkett Smith wed the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" star in December 1997, she found herself "straight-up bawling" while walking down the aisle.

"I was happy and sad, hopeful and scared, triumphant and uncertain," she said. "But what I knew was that I was going to give this marriage my best."

Although Pinkett Smith and Smith have been legally married for more than two decades, they quietly separated in 2016.

Pinkett Smith recently revealed this surprising news during her promotional tour for "Worthy." She also said that the pair "did some really deep work together" after the 2022 Oscars and are currently working on reconciling.