Jodie Turner-Smith Reveals Why She Kept Her Wedding to Joshua Jackson a Secret

Ever since Jodie Turner-Smith and Joshua Jackson met at Usher’s 40th birthday party in 2018, they claim they haven’t left one another’s sides. Now, they’ve been happily married for almost four years and are proud parents to their daughter, Janie. During an interview with People, which was published on March 29, 2023, the actress reflected on her relationship with the Dawsons’s Creek alum. During her conversation, Turner-Smith cited 2019 as a big year because her professional career started taking off after starring in Queen & Slim, and it's the same year when she married Jackson. “Everything happened at the same time for me,” she says. "It was like, I fell in love right before I started this movie that would basically change my life, and then, by the time I was putting this movie out, I was pregnant, I was secretly married, and I was trying to have one moment and not let the other moment overshadow it, which is why I tried to keep it a secret.”

In August of 2019, the Daily Mail published photos of the couple leaving a Beverly Hills courthouse with what appeared to be a marriage license, which sparked rumors that they had tied the knot. Then, at the premiere of Queen & Slim three months later, Turner-Smith had a diamond ring on her left hand, and Jackson was wearing a gold band, which continued to fuel speculation. In December of 2019, Entertainment Tonight reported that they officially married and clarified that they had obtained their marriage license that August. According to Us Weekly, at that same time, the pair was expecting their first child together. 

The Anne Boleyn actress gave birth to her daughter in 2020, and since a pandemic was happening at the time, she was able to bask in the milestone. “The whole world stopped, and there was a global pandemic, and I got to slow down with this precious child of mine,” she tells People. “The pandemic smacked me in the face and forced my to slow down, and I’m so glad it did.”

During a May 2021 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Turner-Smith opened up about meeting Jackson. “First of all, I saw him before he saw me, and when I saw him, I was like, ‘I want that,’” she recalled. “And then when he saw me, I just pretended like I didn’t see him. He had to yell across the room to me.” After Jackson finally got Turner-Smith’s attention, she was smitten. “He comes over and does this really cute, charming thing that he does and just all night, he just basically followed me around the party,” she said. It must have been fate because Turner-Smith revealed to W Magazine in 2020 that her first crush was Jackson’s character Pacey from Dawson’s Creek.

In July of 2021, Jackson appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and shared some of the details behind the proposal. According to the actor, Turner-Smith was the one who popped the question. “She asked my on New Year’s Eve,” he explained. “We were in Nicaragua. It was very beautiful, incredibly romantic. We were walking down the beach and she asked me to marry her.” The Affair star noted that he never suspected that his girlfriend would propose to him. “I did not know, but she was quite adamant, and she was right. This is the best choice I ever made.” Jackson later shared that he also proposed to Turner-Smith.