NEWSWill Smith Was 'Terrified' During Date With Pepa of Salt-N-Pepa: 'I Didn't Really Have Game'
Dec. 29 2023, Published 9:22 a.m. ET
Will Smith revealed why he was "terrified" to go on a date with Sandra "Pepa" Denton, 57, back in the day as the two were starting out in their respective rapping careers.
“I always had a thing for Sandy, but she was always dating somebody else,” the action star, 55, said on "Class of '88" podcast. “Now she was single. We was both going to be in L.A. at the same time, so Imma shoot my shot.”
Will Smith spoke about going on a date with Pepa of Salt-N-Pepa.
“This girl was special and I wanted to impress her, so I rented a white Mercedes convertible just because I needed to floss a little bit,” he continued of the two going on a date "sometime in early '88." “My plan was then to take her around Hollywood Hills, drive up Mulholland and all that, watch the sunset.”
Denton recalled the outing, specifically one moment stuck out her mind. “I know exactly what happened,” she stated. “We were out and we saw a homeless person and you gave the homeless person $100.”
“I was like OK and it was so nice. And then we went to the Hollywood sign," the "Push It!" songstress added.
The two went out in the '80s, but their romance fizzled.
Though Smith's gesture blew Denton away, his biggest concern was that "I was going to get killed," the Aladdin star said. “That was my concern when I was trying to spit my game, but I ain’t really have nothing.”
"I was always faked like I had game. I didn’t really have game,” he added. “I was always in this full-on, trying to give the wildest flavor of having game, but that might have been the most terrified I had ever been trying to shoot my shot with Pepa. And I didn’t believe I had a real shot.”
The stars also spoke about their rapping careers.
After that night, the two's romance fizzled, but he shared that he, his former collaborator DJ Jazzy Jeff and Salt-N-Pepa “always really got along."
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum went on to marry Jada Pinkett Smith in 1997.
Will and his wife made headlines this year after the actress admitted they have been secretly separated for six years, but they aren't willing to divorce one another.
Will Smith later got married to Jada Pinkett Smith, though they are separated.
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"I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce," she said in the TV special Jada's Story. "We will work through whatever, and I just haven't been able to break that promise."
"Still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership," she explained. "In regards to, how do we present that to people? We hadn't figured that out."
