Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith once separated in 2011, after her 40th birthday: 'The life that we had was strangling both of us'

• Will Smith wrote in his 2021 memoir that he and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith once separated in 2011.
• That's five years before Pinkett Smith said they began living "completely different" lives.

Will Smith wrote in his 2021 memoir that he and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith's marriage previously broke down in 2011 — five years before Pinkett Smith claims they began living "completely different" lives.

Pinkett Smith's admission that she and the "King Richard" actor have been "separated" since 2016 has sent social media into a frenzy.

The mom-of-two spoke about the pair's status in an interview with "Today" show host Hoda Kotb to promote her forthcoming memoir, "Worthy."

Although the news has come as a surprise to some fans of the A-list couple, Smith himself has written about issues in their marriage in his own memoir, "Will."

In the book, which was released in November 2021, the "I Am Legend" actor candidly recalled the night he realized "the pressure cooker of our perfect picture was cracking."

The couple, who have been married since 1997 and share children, Willow Smith and Jaden Smith, have been subject to public scrutiny over the years, particularly during Pinkett Smith's "entanglement" with the singer August Alsina, and when Smith disclosed to GQ they were no longer monogamous.

Smith wrote in his memoir that on Pinkett Smith's 40th birthday in 2011, the two got into a huge fight that changed the trajectory of their relationship.

As a birthday gift, Smith surprised Pinkett Smith with a "Finding Your Roots"-style documentary he had commissioned about her lineage.

"Jada seemed to be enjoying herself, but she was quiet — I couldn't get a good read. But it didn't matter because I knew the documentary would be a hands-down grand small emotional home run," Smith optimistically wrote.

When they got back to their hotel suite, the "Red Table Talk" cohost finally let her husband know what she thought of the documentary.

"That was the most disgusting display of ego I have ever seen in my life," Smith recalled her saying.

Per Smith's recollection, they then began screaming at each other "at the top of our lungs, which was very uncharacteristic."

"This night was unlike any before, or since. The pressure cooker of our perfect picture was cracking," Smith recalled. "Our marriage wasn't working. We could no longer pretend. We were both miserable, and clearly something had to change."

"We were suffering the brutal death of our romantic fantasies, the burning away of the idealistic illusion of the perfect marriage and the perfect family," Smith added.

Following their fight, the couple decided to work on their problems separately.

"We agreed that Jada's happiness had to be her responsibility and my happiness had to be my responsibility. We were going to seek our distinct, innermost personal joys, and then we were going to return and present ourselves to the relationship and to each other already happy — not coming to each other begging with empty cups, demanding the other person fulfill our needs," Smith wrote.

"Neither of us wanted a divorce; we knew we loved each other, and some aspects of our union were magical. But the structure of the life that we had established was strangling both of us," he continued.

Pinkett Smith reiterated her husband's comments about their preference not to divorce legally in a preview clip from her interview with Kotb. The interview will air as a primetime special called "Jada's Story – An NBC News Special" on Friday at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.

"I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce," she said in a preview clip. "We will work through whatever. And I just haven't been able to break that promise."

When asked why the "relationship fractured," Pinkett Smith said it could be attributed to "a lot of things."

"I think by the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying. I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be," said the "Matrix" actor.

Pinkett Smith said she didn't clarify the status of her and Smith's relationship until now because she wasn't "ready yet."

"Still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership, right, and in regards to how do we present that to people, you know? And we hadn't figured that out," she said.