Jada Pinkett Smith has opened up about the fallout from the 94th Academy Awards, in which her husband, Will Smith, slapped Chris Rock after he made a joke about her hair.
“My deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have an opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile,” she said on her Facebook Watch show, “Red Table Talk.”
Rock unwittingly made a comment about Pinkett Smith’s bald head. He was not aware of her battle with alopecia. Speaking on Wednesday, she spoke of her “shame.”
“This is a really important ‘Red Table Talk’ about alopecia. Considering what I’ve been through with my health and what happened at the Oscars, thousands have reached out to me with their stories,” she said in an introduction to the episode.
She added, “the state of the world today, we need ’em 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.”
After striking Rock, Smith was handed the best actor award — his first Oscar — for playing Richard Williams, father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, in “King Richard.”
Taking to the stage, Smith broke down. “Love will make you do crazy things,” he said before apologizing to the Academy and his fellow nominees.
Weeks after, Pinkett Smith touched on the matter: “Considering all that has happened in the last few weeks, the Smith family has been focusing on deep healing. Some of the discoveries around our healing will be shared at the table when the time calls.”
A public outcry followed and her husband was forced to resign from the Academy after the slap and he was subsequently banned for a decade.
