Will Smith says Jada Pinkett Smith’s confessions about their marriage “woke him up”

Will Smith has responded to his wife Jada Pinkett Smith‘s forthcoming memoir Worthy and the revelations about their marriage.

In an email shared with The New York Times, Smith candidly expressed that his wife’s revelations in her memoir “woke him up,” adding that it made him realize that she had experienced a life on the edge, uncovering a newfound appreciation for her resilience, intelligence, and compassion.

“When you’ve been with someone for more than half of your life,” he wrote, “a sort of emotional blindness sets in, and you can all too easily lose your sensitivity to their hidden nuances and subtle beauties.”

Will’s response comes amid Jada’s press tour for the memoir, out Tuesday, October 17. During the tour, she’s revealed key details of the book, including dropping the bombshell that the pair had been separated since 2016, way before the infamous Oscar’s slap in 2022, when Will walked onstage and smacked Chris Rock.

“We had been living separate lives and were there as family, not as husband and wife,” read an except of the book shared with People. “But when I hear Will yell ‘wife’ in the chaos of the moment, an internal shift of Oh s*** … I am his wife! happens instantly.”

Meanwhile, Will posted to Instagram that he’s ignoring the reactions to Jada’s headlines: In a new video, Will is shown sleeping on a boat despite notifications pinging incessantly as his phone blows up.

“Fun fact about me: I can take a nap almost anywhere,” you hear in voiceover before Will wakes up and shakes his head at the camera. “Notifications off,” he captioned it, earning a pair of crying laughing emojis from Jada.