Jada Pinkett Smith is reflecting on how her estranged husband’s assault on Chris Rock affected her.
The show host shared that people blamed her for Will Smith‘s actions at the Oscars in 2022, adding that it was “ridiculous in how far it went.”
She also recently opened up about being separated from the “Emancipation” star for seven years in an interview promoting her memoir, Worthy.
Jada Pinkett Smith Says ‘People Need Something To Blame’
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Jada Pinkett Smith opened up about how she felt when the public turned against her after her husband, Will Smith, shocked the world by slapping Chris Rock at last year’s Oscar award ceremony.
The “Red Table Talk” host shared that “it was ridiculous in how far it went” with regard to how much people blamed her for Will’s action.
She tied it to the notion that there was a “false narrative” that she had cheated on Will, referencing her affair with August Alsina, which apparently occurred when she was separated from the “Men in Black” star.
“But I also understood at the same time. Considering the false narrative that I had cheated on Will or I was like some adulteress, Will had never done that before. And I think that when we just look at human nature… when you look at the breadcrumbs, people need something to blame,” Jada said in a recent interview with People magazine.
She added, “And so, people not knowing what was happening behind the scenes, I surely wasn’t surprised that I got blamed. But I understood that that’s just the human nature of it all.”
Jada Pinkett Smith Was Surprised By The Oscars Slap
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Although Jada wasn’t surprised that she got blamed, she was shocked that the slap incident actually happened and had at first thought it was a skit that had been planned ahead.
Rock had been on stage anchoring a part of the Oscars show when he cracked a joke about Jada’s bald head caused by alopecia. Within a few seconds, Will had climbed the stage, slapped his fellow actor, and shouted the now-infamous words, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f—– mouth!”
Upon the actor returning to his seat, Jada realized that it was no prank and that Will had slapped Rock for real.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way that Will hit him.’ It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn’t a skit,” Jada said, explaining her reaction at the time.
Will Smith Says His Wife Did Not Influence Him To Slap Chris Rock
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Since the slap incident, Will has since apologized for his actions to Rock multiple times.
The first apology came a day after the incident via an Instagram post, where he stated that all forms of violence are “poisonous and destructive” and described himself as a “work in progress.”
“I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line, and I was wrong,” Will said at the time. “I am embarrassed, and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.”
After several months off the social scene, Will issued another apology in a YouTube clip in which he explained that Jada did not influence him to slap Rock.
“It’s like… I made a choice on my own from my own experiences and my history with Chris. Jada had nothing to do with it,” he declared.
Is Will And Jada Pinkett Smith’s Marriage Over?
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Ahead of the release of her memoir Worthy, Jada dropped a bombshell that has raised enough dust, akin to the notoriety of the Oscar slap incident, per People.
The 52-year-old shared in the preview of her tell-all interview on “Today” that she had been separated from Will for seven years.
Jada explained that her separation from Will wasn’t “a divorce on paper,” but they were both “exhausted with trying” a long time ago.
The revelation suggested that they were only keeping up appearances whenever they attended high-profile events together.
As to why they were yet to cut off their marriage strings completely, Jada stated that she and Will weren’t “ready yet,” adding they were “still trying to figure out, between the two of us, how to be in partnership.”
“In regards to, how do we present that to people? We hadn’t figured that out,” she noted.