Will Smith shocked America when he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars and uttered a now infamous sentence in defense of Jada Pinkett Smith: “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth.”
But Jada was surprised for a different reason, as Will had not called her his “wife” for a while before that.
“First of all, I’m really shocked, because mind you, I’m not there. We haven’t called each other husband and wife in a long time,” Jada told Hoda Kotb in an NBC News primetime special while promoting her upcoming memoir, “Worthy,” out Oct. 17. “I’m like, ‘What is going on right now? Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth?’ I’m really worried for Will because I don’t know what’s going on.”
At the 2022 Oscars, Will stormed the stage and struck Rock after the comedian made a joke about Jada’s bald head. Jada, who has alopecia, rolled her eyes after Rock jokingly referred to her as G.I. Jane.
“I did that eye roll not so much for me — and I think this is really important — but the fact that there could be a jab at alopecia,” Jada told Kotb in a new clip.
After the slap, Will won the Oscar for best actor and delivered an emotional five-minute speech. He later resigned from the Academy amid backlash to the slap, and the Academy then banned Will from its membership and from attending events such as the Oscars for 10 years.
Earlier this week, Jada spoke about the Oscars slap for the first time, telling People magazine she thought it was “a skit” when Will approached the stage to confront Rock. She also revealed that she and Will had been separated for six years by that point.
“We’re still figuring it out,” Jada told People about the state of her marriage to Will. “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.”
