Will Smith Says His Divorce from Sheree Fletcher Was the Worst Thing in his Adult Life

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Will Smith is getting honest about his divorce from his first wife, Sheree Fletcher.

In a PEOPLE exclusive clip of Facebook Watch's Father's Day episode of Red Table Talk, the actor sat down for a one-on-one conversation with his wife and host Jada Pinkett Smith in which they touched on raising his son with Fletcher, Trey, 27. "I want to talk about one interesting concept that you’ve brought up quite a bit in regards to Trey and divorce — and the idea being that just because a man might not be the best husband, does not mean he isn’t a good father," Pinkett Smith, 48, said.

 

Will Smith, 51, said, "With Sheree and with Trey, that was a really difficult time. Divorce was the worst thing in my adult life, divorce was the ultimate failure for me." "I’ve been hurt a lot in my adult life, but I don't think anything touches the failure of getting divorced from my 2-year-old son’s mother," he added.

 

Smith and Fletcher (né Zampino) married in 1992 and divorced in 1995. The actor married Pinkett Smith in 1997 and the couple shares two kids: son Jaden, 21, and daughter Willow, 19. Fletcher appeared in the debut episode of Red Table Talk in May 2018 where she and Pinkett Smith discussed how they developed a good relationship despite initial struggles.

 

"Do you remember that conversation we had on the phone that one time?" Pinkett Smith asked Fletcher. "They were fighting words." Fletcher said she had called the house to speak with then-3-year-old Trey when the Girls Trip star answered the phone. Fletcher admitted that she wasn’t "respectful" when she called, and Pinkett Smith didn’t take kindly to her attitude. "You basically let me know, 'I don’t really appreciate your tone,'" she recalled. "And you hung up on me." When Fletcher called back, things only escalated. "I happened to say, ‘B—- you living in the house I picked out," said Fletcher. "You said, 'It’s my house now.'" Pinkett Smith said things got so heated that her husband had to step in.

 

"Will Smith let me have it," said Pinkett Smith. "His take was, 'That is Trey’s mother and that’s just not your place.'" And it seems his words really sunk in. Fletcher said the next time the women saw it each other, they made and effort to mend their relationship. "You would always say Re, I apologize," said Fletcher. "You always owned it. Thank you for that." Red Table Talk's Father's Day episode airs on Facebook Watch on Sunday, June 21 at 9 a.m. PT/12 p.m. ET. The show will also host a special Juneteenth episode on Friday, June 19 in which Pinkett Smith, Willow and Adrienne Banfield Norris will discuss the state of emergency within Black America.

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