I managed to get to this point in my life under the misconception that Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, enjoyed a rare long-term, stable Hollywood marriage. After his loss of self-control at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, however, it became clear that there’s trouble in paradise. I quickly learned that the Smiths had decided to give adultery a chance when their marriage was struggling. While they claim to have reconciled last summer, I’m not so sure their marriage is okay.
“And marriage for us can’t be a prison. And I don’t suggest our road for anybody,” Smith said in an interview with GC last September. “But the experiences that the freedoms that we’ve given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love.”
How’s that working out for you, Will?
Related: Will Smith Physically Assaults Chris Rock Live at the Oscars—for Telling a Joke He Didn’t Like
You don’t have to be particularly religious — heck, you don’t even have to believe in God — to understand that the basics tenets of Christianity are solid rules for basic emotional hygiene and good health — mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional.
The Ten Commandments are not only the basis of Western law, they are also lifestyle commandments for all who would live well. The Smiths have blown through a couple of them: they cheat and they covet.
It goes without saying that the seven deadly sins are best avoided if you wish to live in peace, health, and security. Number one on that list is lust, which is clearly an issue for the Smiths. The couple is also indulging in pride; open marriage is often described as believing oneself so much smarter and better than everyone else, that one can open the door just a little bit and it will stay that way.
The truth is that the door almost never remains only partly open. It’s extremely rare for people to be able to maintain a non-exclusive romantic relationship without the wheels coming off at some point. In my (admittedly small) experience, a couple who opens up their marriage is already in danger of losing that marriage, and they think the loosening of restraint will somehow help. Spoiler alert: it almost never does.
I’ve also noticed that there’s generally one partner who doesn’t really want to open up the marriage, but that person would try anything to keep the other person in the marriage.
True to formula, in an interview last fall, Will Smith “revealed that the pair had endured intense arguments for years preceding their decision against monogamy, with things reaching a ‘breaking point’ by Jada’s 40th birthday in 2011,” according to BuzzFeed News. “‘Our marriage wasn’t working,’ Will explained. ‘We could no longer pretend. We were both miserable and clearly something had to change.'”
Smith also confessed to having difficulty embracing the concept of infidelity because of his “religious upbringing.” Luckily, he went to an “intimacy coach” who helped him get his head right about having a sidepiece or two. “That was really the process that [the intimacy coach] worked me through to let me realize that my thoughts were not sins and even acting on an impure thought didn’t make me a piece of shi*,” he explained.
And maybe Smith has even convinced himself to accept his own cheating. But the man who went ballistic on Sunday night — slugging Chris Rock for daring to make a joke about his precious Jada and bellowing, “Keep my wife’s name out your f**king mouth” — is not okay with his wife’s extramarital activity.
Smith later went back onstage to accept his first-ever Oscar. “I know to do what we do, you gotta be able to take abuse,” he sniffled. “In this business, you gotta be able to have people disrespecting you, and you gotta smile and pretend like that’s okay.” Was he talking about show business or Jada’s funny business?
Smith is clearly in a lot of pain, but that’s not Chris Rock’s fault. But as Smith said during his acceptance speech, “love will make you do crazy things.”
Besides being a world-class comedian, Chris Rock is also a gentleman. He took the brunt of Smith’s temper tantrum with good grace and self-restraint. It’s not easy for a man to let another man slug him on international TV without swinging back. But it’s not Rock’s fault that Smith can’t keep his wife happy. Smith owes Rock just about the biggest apology ever.
Will Smith used Chris Rock as a stand-in as he vented his rage at being openly cuckolded.
Doubtless, he really wants to hit the guys his wife is banging.
Maybe, he really wants to hit his wife.
Or maybe, he really wants to hit himself.
Pathetic.
