Has Hollywood moved on from Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars last year? Maybe everyone else has, but Jada Pinkett Smith wants to touch upon it one more time. EW reports (via a new People interview with the actress) that Pinkett Smith was as shocked as everybody else when her husband went onstage and smacked the Oscars host. In fact, Pinkett Smith didn’t even think the slap was real, but instead a skit that was part of the show.
“I thought, ‘This is a skit,'” Pinkett Smith said in the People interview about her new memoir, “Worthy.” The actress’ comments come about a year and a half after the live telecast, where Smith hit Rock in the face after the host made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head. “I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him.’ It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn’t a skit.” Smith went on to win Best Actor for his performance in “King Richard” that evening, but was subsequently banned from Academy-related events for the next decade due to his behavior.
In her interview, Pinkett Smith also recalled her first words to her husband that night after they were alone. “Are you okay?” she asked him. As for the fallout from Smith’s actions, the actress said, “I’m going to be by his side, but also allow him to have to figure this out for himself.” Pinkett Smith’s comment shoudn’t come as a surprise since she revealed in the same interview that she and Smith have been separated since 2016, although not divorced. As for the reconciliation Pinkett Smith called for between her Smith and Rock last November, that’s yet to happen, and probably never will.
But has Pinkett Smith talked to Rock at all since the night of the Oscars last year? “No, I haven’t talked to Chris,” she confirmed to People. “[Do I have] any desire to talk to Chris? Here’s my desire: I just hope that all the misunderstandings around this can be cleared up and that there can be peace.” As for whether she was offended by Rock’s joke about her haircut and alopecia, Pinkett Smith said, “I mean, that’s what comedians do. I would just have to say that I am not really here to make any judgment on how people decide to express themselves and express their art. I’ll say that several times I’ve had my feelings hurt, for sure. I’ve had my feelings hurt a lot by Chris. But at the end of the day, too, being in the spotlight, it comes with the territory.”
So that’s Ms. Pinkett Smith’s take on what Will did at the Oscars last year. Her memoir “Worthy” is in bookstores everywhere now.
