Jada Pinkett Smith has shared what Chris Rock said to her immediately after that infamous Will Smith Oscars slap.
The 2022 Oscars ceremony took a chaotic turn when Will slapped comedian Chris after he made a joke about wife Jada’s hair.
After taking shots at audience members in attendance at the 94th Academy Awards, things spiralled when he quipped about Jada’s shaved head, saying she looked like ‘GI Jane’ - the titular character from the 1997 film in which actor Demi Moore sported a similar look.
This didn’t go down to well with Jada, who has previously opened up about experiencing alopecia, which prompted her husband to leap up onto the stage in her defence.
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After he returned to his seat, he called up to the host: "Keep my wife's name out of your f*cking mouth.”
A stunned Chris replied: "Wow, dude. It was a G.I. Jane joke."
Jada, 52, has now spoken out about the incident in a new interview with People, ahead of the release of her new book Worthy, which has brought along the revelation that she and husband Will have been secretly separated for seven years.
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She admitted she ‘hasn’t talked to Chris’ recently – explaining that the whole thing had been a ‘big misunderstanding’, referencing the 2016 Oscars, when Will was overlooked for his performance in Concussion and the category saw no actors of colour nominated.
At the time, Jada was publicly supportive of the #OscarsSoWhite movement, and was among many people calling for the awards to be boycotted.
Chris was hosting that year, and made digs about Jada in his monologue, also claiming in his Netflix comedy special – released earlier this year – that she’d told him he should quit the hosting job in solidarity.
Jada said: “[Do I have] any desire to talk to Chris? Here's my desire: I just hope that all the misunderstanding around this can be cleared up and that there can be peace.
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“I talk about this in the book, I think that there might be some misunderstanding between Chris and I as far as the 2016 Oscars.
“I think that he might've taken offense, which I meant no harm in offending. That wasn't my intention. But I do think that there's a big misunderstanding there.”
She admitted to ‘not really recognizing the level of pressure [Chris] might've been under', adding: “I probably should have called him and gone, ‘Hey, are you okay?
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“And just know that although I'm speaking out about the Oscars, I do wish you the best and I just want you to know that,’ me taking the time to have called him and said that, just to touch base.
“But his feelings might've been hurt."
Jada said that, directly after the slap, Chris came off the stage to speak to her when there was a pause in the live broadcast.
“Chris came down to the end of the stage and tried to apologize to me,” she recalled.
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“He said, ‘I didn't mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can't talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s**t.’
“I thought this was [about] the Oscar 2016 and … their stuff that they had before I even came into the picture in the late ‘80s.
“I’ve got to leave that to Will and Chris to talk about, but they got their stuff for sure.”
Jada also explained how she thought they’d moved on from the 2016 incident, as he’d called her at some point that year to say sorry.
“He apologized and I apologized to him as well,” she said.
“So I actually thought that we were good, that the hatchet was buried between us. And we hadn't talked since then, until 2022 came.”
Topics: Celebrity, Jada Pinkett Smith
Jess Hardiman