Jada Pinkett Smith has revealed that Chris Rock actually asked her out on a date before he hosted at the Oscars 2022, where he was slapped by Jada’s husband Will Smith
Jada Pinkett-Smith has revealed that comedian Chris Rock asked her out before he was slapped by her husband Will Smith at the Oscars in 2022.
Chris made a joke about Jada’s bald hairstyle, which was a result of her alopecia diagnosis. The joke didn’t go down well with Will, who defended his wife by shouting expletives at Chris from the audience.
In a shocking move, he then stormed on stage and slapped the comedian across the face, leaving the audience and the world with jaws dropped. Will has since publicly apologized for the violent act, but Jada has uncovered another layer to the story.
Speaking about the divorce rumours that would circulate about her and Will’s marriage, she said: “I think every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce. And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce.
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“So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out,'” she revealed. “And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He was like, ‘Well, aren’t you and Will getting a divorce?’ I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.”
During the same conversation with People, Jada also revealed that she and Will had been secretly separated for seven years, and weren’t together at the time of the Oscars scandal. In fact, she told the publication that she thought the slap was part of a “skit.”
Opening up about the incident and her relationship with Will, she said: “We’re still figuring it out. We’ve been doing some really heavy-duty work together. We just got deep love for each other, and we are going to figure out what that looks like for us.”
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“My children, they’re little gurus. They’ve taught me a deep sense of self-acceptance.” The 52-year-old also broke her silence on Smith’s actions at the Oscars. “I thought, ‘This is a skit’,” she admitted. Like many people watching the incident unfold on live TV, she didn’t believe it was real initially.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him’,” Jada said. She continued: “It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn’t a skit.”
The couple has experienced several difficulties in their marriage, including when she had a four-year affair with a friend of her son, Willow. She later openly discussed her “entanglement” with rapper August Alsina in 2020. In the past, they have alluded to having an “unconventional” union, with Pinkett Smith once saying they are free to “do whatever they want” in their “grown relationship”.