Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith 'healing relationship'

Jada Pinkett Smith has said she and Will Smith are "working very hard" on their marriage after revealing last week that they separated in 2016.

They have been living separately, she said, despite regularly appearing together.

Pinkett Smith told NBC they were really concentrating on "healing the relationship".

The couple made headlines last year when Will Smith stormed the stage at the Oscars and slapped host Chris Rock.

He yelled "keep my wife's name out of your [expletive] mouth".

Pinkett Smith's revelation around the Hollywood actors' relationship made headlines across the world.

Speaking to NBC's Today Show, she said: "We are in a place now that we are in a deep healing space.

"And we are really concentrating on healing the relationship between us...

"We are working very hard at bringing our relationship together back to a life partnership."

She explained: "He can't be this perfect idealised husband. I have to be able to accept him for the human he is.

"He has to accept me for the human I am. And we want to love each other there."

When asked if the couple might live in the same house again, she agreed they might.

On Wednesday, as part of a book launch, she said she had considered a legal divorce but could not go through with it because she was determined to work through it.

She put the relationship breakdown to "a lot of things" and by 2016 they were "exhausted with trying".

Previously there had been speculation about the couple's marriage in 2020 after the pair discussed on her Facebook show Red Table Talk that Pinkett Smith had been in an "entanglement" with artist August Alsina.

The actors met in 1994 when she auditioned for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and later married in 1997.

The pair have two children together - Jaden Smith and Willow Smith - along with Trey Smith, Smith's son from his first marriage.