Jada Pinkett Smith directly addressed the Oscars night slap on Wednesday during a “really important” Red Table Talk episode about alopecia.
In March, her husband Will Smith stormed the stage at the Academy Awards and slapped comedian and presenter Chris Rock after he made a joke comparing Pinkett Smith’s shaved head to Demi Moore’s hairstyle in the 1997 film “G.I. Jane.”
Now, the actor, who suffers from alopecia, is using “the moment” on her influential show to shed light on the autoimmune condition that causes hair loss and to “give our alopecia family an opportunity to talk about what it’s like to have this condition.”
“Considering what I’ve been through and what happened at the Oscars, thousands have reached out to me with their stories,” Pinkett Smith said on Wednesday’s show.
“Now, about Oscar night,” Pinkett Smith continued.
“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 keep figuring out this thing called life together.”
During the episode, the actor had an emotional conversation with Nicole Ball, whose 12-year-old daughter, Rio, died by suicide after being bullied at school for her alopecia.
Two weeks after Rio’s death, the Oscars incident between Smith and Rock happened.
“It is not a joke,” Ball said of the medical condition.
Since 2018, the Smith couple has been vocal about her experiences with alopecia, which affects about 7 million people in the United States, according to Meena Singh, a dermatologist and “Red Table Talk” guest.
“There was so much shame,” Pinkett Smith said.
Will Smith publicly apologized to Rock and the the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in a statement after the incident. He also resigned from the Academy and was banned from attending Oscar ceremonies for 10 years.
Less than a month after the slap happened, Pinkett Smith posted a statement on social media saying, “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.”
