Jada Pinkett Smith Says Oscar Slap Helped Her Realize She Will 'Never Leave' Will Smith

Jada Pinkett Smith has apparently put us all back in the group chat after claiming that her marriage to Will Smith was resuscitated when he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars .

“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 Daily Mail’s YOU Magazine in an interview published Saturday. 

The “Matrix” star went on to reveal that she “nearly didn’t even attend” the awards show, but added she’s “glad” she did. 

Pinkett Smith says she calls the infamous moment the “holy slap” now “because so many positive things came after it.” 

At the 94th Academy Awards in March 2022, the “Bad Boys” actor, 55, walked on stage and struck Rock , 58, in the face after the comedian made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.

At the time, Rock compared her shaved head, which is a result of her alopecia diagnosis , to Demi Moore in the 1997 film “G.I. Jane.” 

Following the controversial incident, Smith was banned from attending the Academy events for 10 years. 

The famous couple has been married since 1997, but while promoting her book “Worthy” in October, the “Red Table Talk” host admitted that the two have been separated since 2016 .

“By the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying,” she explained to NBC’s Hoda Kotb . “I think we were both kind of just still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.”

Despite all the drama, Pinkett Smith went on to tell the Daily Mail that the moment “shit [hit] the fan” ultimately helped bring the two closer together. 

“Who knows where our relationship would be if [the slap] hadn’t happened?” she said.