Jada Pinkett-Smith is getting real on her thoughts surrounding Will Smith’s infamous Oscars slap.
Nearly 18 months after the incident went down, Smith is getting candid about her reaction to Will slapping comedian Chris Rock.
In an excerpt from Smith’s new memoir, Worthy, she describes her thoughts after Rock made a joke at her expense during the Academy Awards. The quip involved Smith’s ongoing battle with alopecia, a struggle she had embraced prior, reported TooFab.
“G.I. Jane Two, can’t wait to see it,” Rock said, followed by Will striking the comedian during the live broadcast.
Jada Pinkett-Smith And Chris Rock’s Former Feuds
Smith wrote, “I had my own premonition right before the incident on the Oscar stage. It flashed through my mind as Chris Rock’s face came across the screen as one of the presenters that night. In fact, my stomach clenched,” she recalled in her book. “He had been known to take swipes at me — and from the Oscar stage, no less. That had been in 2016, six years earlier, during what became known as #OscarsSoWhite.”
In 2016, Rock’s Oscar monologue joked that Smith was upset at the lack of diversity in the awards show.
“Jada said she’s not coming, protest. I was like, ‘Isn’t she on a TV show?’ Jada’s going to boycott the Oscars? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited!” the comedian exclaimed, hyping up the audience.
Despite Rock’s later apology, Smith didn’t speak to him directly for six years. Given the Academy Award’s prestige, she assumed the Everybody Hates Chris actor would hold off on jokes directed at her. However, that wasn’t the case.
Rock proceeded to joke about Smith’s alopecia during the show, prompting an eye roll from the star. Despite her visible annoyance, she claims it wasn’t about how the joke hurt her. It was about how Rock’s joke affected other alopecia fighters.
“That was indeed a very light joke, as many expressed, but it was not about me. I was frustrated that the majority of folks can’t seem to understand how devastating alopecia can be. My heart broke for the many who live in shame, the children who have committed suicide after being teased and taunted by their classmates,” Smith explained.
She continued, “And now the Oscars, in all its political correctness, was telling the world it was okay to make jokes at the expense of a woman suffering from alopecia?”
After the joke, Will slapped Rock across the face. Millions viewed the gesture on live television, and it later turned into a viral meme on social media.
Jada Clears The Confusion On Her Relationship With Will
“Even so, I am unclear on the reason why Will is so upset. We had been living separate lives and were there as family, not as husband and wife,” she wrote in the book. “But when I hear Will yell ‘wife’ in the chaos of the moment, an internal shift of Oh s— . . . I am his wife! happens instantly.”
After speaking with TODAY, Jada confirmed she and Will had been separated for six years at the time of the incident. Today, the former couple still aren’t romantically involved.
Smith’s book, Worthy, is set to release on October 17.