Jada Pinkett-Smith said Will Smith’s infamous 2022 Oscars slap saved their marriage.
“After all those years trying to figure out if I would leave Will’s side, it took that slap for me to see I will never leave him,” she told the Daily Mail in an interview published Saturday.
“Who knows where our relationship would be if that hadn’t happened?”
The Red Table Talk Show host has been married to the I Am Legend star since 1997, but shockingly revealed in October that the two had been quietly separated for seven years.
However, Pinkett-Smith recalled how everything changed that night in Los Angeles after her husband charged onstage to slap Chris Rock for the crack the comedian made about his wife’s alopecia.
“I call it the ‘holy slap’ now because so many positive things came after it,” the mother-of-two told the outlet, adding that she was “glad” she was at the event despite “nearly” missing it.
“That moment of the s**t hitting the fan is when you see where you really are.”
Of course, a slew of revelations about Pinkett-Smith, 52, and her Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star husband, 55, took the internet by storm nearly two months ago when she published her tell-all memoir, Worthy.
Despite Pinkett-Smith detailing the struggles within their marriage — and hitting on her affair with singer August Alsina — Smith stood by her side following the release of the book.
“We have had a very, very long and tumultuous [relationship]. We call it ‘brutiful.’ It was brutal and beautiful at the same time,” the Aladdin actor said in October as he appeared onstage alongside his wife.
He also thanked Pinkett-Smith for her support, adding that his dreams were “largely built on the foundation of Jada’s sacrifices.”
Additionally, Smith told the New York Times in an email that her memoir “woke [him] up.”
“When you’ve been with someone for more than half of your life, a sort of emotional blindness sets in,” he wrote in October.
“And you can all too easily lose your sensitivity to their hidden nuances and subtle beauties.”
Pinkett-Smith — who shares kids Jaden, 25, and Willow, 23, with her husband — echoed a similar sentiment.
“You never stop learning about your partner,” she told InStyle on October 17. “It gave [Will] such intimate insight into everything in a way that I don’t know if he would’ve had without a book.
“I think that’s been a huge benefit. It’s really beautiful.”
This story originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission