Jodie Turner-Smith says she’s found the right tool to help her explain divorce to her 6-year-old daughter.
On Monday’s episode of the “Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb” podcast, the British actor spoke about co-parenting after her divorce from Joshua Jackson, and how she’s helping their daughter understand their family’s new dynamics.
The former couple married in 2019 and welcomed their daughter in 2020. They finalized their divorce in 2025, after separating two years earlier.
Turner-Smith said she and Jackson, who both come from divorced families, gave careful thought to how they’d explain the divorce to their daughter.
“It’s always been important to think about, OK, what is the language around which we are going to talk about this with our daughter, because this is her new reality, you know?” Turner-Smith told podcast host Hoda Kotb.
The “Queen and Slim” star said they’re learning as they go along, “but the idea is always two homes filled with love.”
“I’m like, you’ve got two houses, girl,” Turner-Smith said.
Since her daughter was very young when she and Jackson split, Turner-Smith said that explaining the separation has been more difficult than dealing with other people’s reactions.
“You’ve got to walk this line between obviously being age-appropriate and child-centered in the way that you talk about it, but also keeping it real so that she has an understanding of what this means,” Turner-Smith said. “Honestly, my favorite tool in all of this has been my favorite tool for life: books.”
She has read her daughter “so many books about divorce,” and what that can look like, she said,
“Children’s books have been helpful as well,” Turner-Smith said.
Turner-Smith isn’t the only Hollywood celebrity to have spoken about navigating divorce with kids.
In 2024, Donna Kelce said that she and her now ex-husband decided to postpone their divorce until after their kids, Jason and Travis Kelce, finished college.
“We worked together as a team,” she said. “So we decided that we would be married throughout the entire time that the kids were in the house, and that’s the way it worked out.”
In 2025, Bethanny Frankel said she made a point of never “badmouthing” her ex-husband, Jason Hoppy, to their daughter despite their messy divorce.
“It’s a long road. Your kids will become cognizant, and they will understand. You don’t have to say it to them. You don’t have to prove it to them,” Frankel said. “You should never ever say a bad thing about the other parent ever, because it is the worst thing you could do to a child.”
