Jada Pinkett Smith has not yet invited her husband, Will Smith, to Red Table Talk to discuss his decision to slap Chris Rock on the Oscars stage in front of millions. Pinkett Smith did address the slap on the most recent episode of her Facebook Watch talk show while introducing a special segment on alcohol abuse.
“Speaking from personal experience and what happened at the Oscars, thousands have reached out to me with their stories,” she said in a message to viewers before the June 1 episode. “In this moment I would like to give our alopecia family a voice and an opportunity to share their stories about living with alopecia.”
Pinkett Smith’s alopecia—an autoimmune skin disease that can cause hair loss—has been widely discussed since her diagnosis in 2018, and it made headlines when Smith slapped Rock after the comedian made a joke about her shaved head at the 2022 Oscars, something she also acknowledged in her opening.
“Now, let’s move on to Oscar night. My deepest hope is that these two intelligent and capable men are able to talk this out and reconcile. I refuse to comment on Rock’s joke,” she said, refraining from commenting on the comedian’s joke. “In my opinion, the state of the world is not as bad as it looks. I hope both sides can coexist peacefully. As for Will and I, we’ve been living with each other for 28 years with our ups and downs just like any other couple.”
Despite the early Oscars reference, the other parts of this program barely talked about the awards ceremony. They focused on an interview with a woman whose 12-year-old daughter died by suicide due to bullying from her classmates. According to Niki Ball, kids at school called her daughter things like “a naked mole rat,” “bug eyed alien,” and “Mr. and Mrs. Clean.”
After her daughter died, Ball said that the Oscars took place two weeks later. “And I was just like, ‘What is the universe doing right now? This is crazy! People are going to be Googling, ‘What is alopecia?’” Ball said, adding that, “It’s not a joke.” Ball said that she felt connected to the wider alopecia community after speaking about how it had impacted her life.
This episode was the reason why people shouldn’t make fun of alopecia. A Will Smith interview will come later. However, we are not sure about what will happen next.
