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Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith are ‘working very hard’ to reconcile

People
Will Smith, left, and Jada Pinkett Smith

Actress Jada Pinkett Smith has clarified the status of her marriage to Will Smith, less than a week after revealing the couple had been separated since 2016. She says there is no divorce, and there is no plan for one.

The actress, whose new memoir “Worthy” has come with several attention-grabbing revelations, sat with “TODAY” show host Hoda Kotb Monday to say that she and the Academy Award winner are “working very hard” to heal their relationship.

“There’s no finding another great love, and I think that’s the point,” she told co-anchor Kotb when asked about the post-marriage possibilities. “It’s like 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.”

“There’s no divorce on paper,” Pinkett Smith continued. “We really have been working hard. That’s the whole thing. We are working very hard at bringing our relationship together. Back to a life partnership.”

In a pre-recorded interview that aired as NBC last week, the “Red Table Talk” host said the Hollywood power couple have been living “separate lives” for the past seven years, though not legally divorced.

During Monday’s live in-studio interview, Pinkett Smith, 52, clarified her initial comments, which subsequently created a firestorm of social media reactions.

“Here’s the thing about husband-wife marriage for me, for my healing process,” she began. “I came into that with very specific ideas that were blocks to me seeing Will as who he is. He can’t be this perfect, ideal guy husband. I have to be able to accept him for the human that he is, (and) he accepts me for the human that I am. And we want to love each other there.”

The couple, who wed in 1997, are the parents of recording artists and actors Jaden, 25, and 22-year-old Willow.

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LONDON — Madonna kicked off her career-spanning Celebration Tour at London's O2 Arena on Saturday night, marking her first performance since suffering what her manager called a “serious bacterial infection” that led to hospitalization in an intensive care unit for several days back in June.

“I’m on the road to recovery and incredibly grateful for all the blessings in my life,” the pop superstar wrote on Instagram this summer, shortly after news of the ICU stay broke. “My focus now is on my health and getting stronger and I assure you, I’ll be back with you as soon as I can.”

On stage, Madonna, 65, said she'd had a “crazy year" that neither she nor her doctors thought she'd make it through. She said her children spurred her on and that she had to “survive for them.” The opening night of the tour also marked the 27th birthday of daughter Lourdes Leon, who appeared on stage with her mother.

After a brief technical hitch, the opening night of the tour was indeed a celebration. Madonna played songs from across her vast career, including studio recordings and footage drawing on four decades of hits. On the set list were iconic songs from “Like a Prayer” to “Holiday” to “Vogue” to “La Isla Bonita." She also included more niche tracks such as “Die Another Day” from the 2002 Bond movie of the same name.

During an acoustic moment in the show, Madonna spoke out about the ongoing war in the Middle East .

“Even though our hearts are broken, our spirits cannot be broken,” she said, adding that she hopes for a “collective consciousness to change the world and bring peace.”

Madonna rescheduled the North American leg of her tour, originally slated to kick off July 15 in Vancouver and run through Oct. 8 in Las Vegas. That leg now begins Dec. 13 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and runs through April 24, 2024, when it will conclude at Mexico City’s Palacio de los Deportes.

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Justin Timberlake

Britney Spears’ is about to hit hard at ex Justin Timberlake one more time.

According to sources, the “SexyBack” singer is “not going to be happy” when he sees what Spears has to say about him in her much-anticipated memoir, “The Woman in Me,” due out Oct. 24.

Noting that while “it’s not Britney’s intention to skewer anyone,” a source told Us Weekly that the book does “relay the facts from her perspective,” while another source says Spears “goes after [Timberlake] hard.”

Spears and the NSYNC breakout first met after getting cast on “The Mickey Mouse Club” in 1993, and later dated from 1999 to 2002 after they both hit it big. As depicted in the “Framing Britney Spears” doc, he and their relationship are perceived by some as having had a negative affect on Spears, for which Timberlake said in 2021 he was “deeply sorry.”

Fans are expecting to read all about what went down between the former couple, as well as Spears’ ongoing struggles with her family and lengthy conservatorship, terminated in late 2021.

Whether or not anything from the current year will be included in the book is yet to be seen, but it’s certainly been a tumultuous one for Spears.

In August, her third husband, Sam Asghari, filed for divorce after just 14 months of marriage. He called it quits after reportedly accusing Spears of violent outbursts and cheating on him with a house employee.

By mid-September, friends of Spears were concerned amid her rumored new relationship with former housekeeper and ex-con Paul Richard Soliz — though they quickly split.

Weeks later, she made headlines for posting bizarre videos of herself dancing with knives in hand. Though Spears insisted the blades were fake — and that she was “trolling” fans with the videos — concern from at least one person who knows her offline prompted a welfare check from the Los Angeles Police Department.

From combined wire services

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