In a new episode of Red Table Talk, Jada Pinkett Smith directly addresses Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars over a joke about her hair.
The latest installment of her Facebook Watch series sees Pinkett Smith talk with various people who have lived with alopecia, which has impacted her.
“This is a really important Red Table Talk on alopecia. Considering what I’ve been through with my own health and what happened at the Oscars, thousands have reached out to me with their stories,” Pinkett Smith said while opening the episode. “I’m using this moment to give our alopecia family an opportunity to talk about what it’s like to have this condition and to inform people about what alopecia actually is.”
Getting into the Academy Awards controversy at the 0:20 mark, she said, “Now about Oscar night, my deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have an opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile. The state of the world today? We need them both. And we all actually need one another more than ever. Until then, Will and I are continuing to do what we have done for the last 28 years, and that’s keep figuring out this thing called life together. Thank you for listening.”
At the Oscars in late March, Chris Rock presented the award for Best Documentary and told a joke at the expense of Jada’s shaved head. “Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,” he said, referring to the 1997 film in which Demi Moore sported a buzzcut. Will walked onstage, slapped Chris, and then returned to my seat. “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth,” he shouted at the comedian, who appeared shell shocked.
This is the first time Jada has directly addressed the situation, although she has previously alluded to a long-awaited response in the past. Shortly after the Oscars, she simply shared an Instagram post that read, “This is a season for healing and I’m here for it.” On the season premiere of Red Table Talk,—which she co-hosts with daughter Willow Smith and mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris—she said she would address the slap “when the time calls.”
As a result of the incident, Will was banned from attending the Oscars for the next 10 years. Maybe a bit harsh for an establishment that greeted Roman Polanski with cheers when he won two Oscars in 2003, decades after he fled the United States for pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.
Watch the full 30-minute Red Table Talk episode below:
