Jada Pinkett Smith Comments on Oscar Night Incident

Jada Pinkett Smith used the latest episode of her Facebook Watch show Red Table Talk to address the infamous moment at this year’s Oscars when her husband, Will Smith, walked onto the stage at the Dolby Theatre and slapped comedian Chris Rock after he made a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith’s expense.

The reason to comment now is that this particular episode of Red Table Talk is titled “Alopecia: The Devastating Impact,” and it’s about the medical condition that caused Pinkett Smith to shave her head in the first place — which inspired Rock’s quip about how he was looking forward to seeing her in “G.I. Jane 2,” a play on the ’90s war movie where Demi Moore famously shaved her head. (Rock would later claim he didn’t know Pinkett Smith had alopecia.)

Kicking off this alopecia-centric episode of Red Table Talk, Pinkett Smith looked directly into the camera and addressed the notorious slapping incident this way:

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 to keep figuring out this thing called life together. Thank you for listening.

In the immediate wake of Smith slapping Rock on the Oscars telecast, Smith won the year’s Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in King Richard. Despite the fact that Smith had just attacked one of the show’s awards presenters, he was allowed to get on stage, accept his award, and give a speech, in which he noted that the character he played, the real-life father of Venus and Serena Williams, was fiercely protective of his family. In the days after the slap, Smith resigned from the Academy; later, the Academy’s Board of Governors voted to ban Smith from the Oscars for ten years.

Pinkett Smith also said that her show on alopecia was “really important” because after the Oscars “thousands have reached out” to share their own stories of dealing with the condition. You can watch the entire episode below.