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American actress Jada Pinkett, the wife of award-winning actor Will Smith, has spoken about the infamous Oscars slap for the first time.
Pinkett addressed the moment her husband walked up to the stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock during this year’s Academy Awards in March.
The incident stunned the world and topped the headlines for weeks.
The comedian joked, “Jada, I love you. ‘GI Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it.” in reference to a 1997 movie where the main character, played by Demi Moore, had a closely shaven head.
In response, Smith walked on stage and shockingly slapped Rock across the face on live television during the prestigious, star-studded award ceremony.
The actress publicly spoke about the slap yesterday during her Facebook Talk Show Series, Red Table Talk.
In an episode that Pinkett introduced as “a really important talk about alopecia”, the talk show host said that she hoped her husband and Rock would reconcile.
“Considering what I’ve been through with my own health and what happened at the Oscars, thousands have reached out to me with their stories,” Pinkett said in the introduction of the program.
She added: “I’m using this moment to give our alopecia family an opportunity to talk about what it’s like to have this condition and to inform people about what alopecia actually is.”
The 50-year-old actress then swiftly mentioned the incident, urging the two parties to find peace and healing moving forward.
“Now about Oscar night, my deepest hope is that these two intelligent and capable men have an opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile,” Pinkett said.
“The state of the world today; we need them both, and we all actually need each other more than ever.”
The actress, who has been married to Smith since 1997 then added that she and her husband would “ keep figuring out this thing called life together.”
“We will continue doing what we have done for the past 28 years,” she said.
The Guardian notes that Pinkett had shared, “this is a season for healing and I’m here for it” on her Instagram account the day after the incident.
Alopecia is an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss.
“Many people who develop alopecia areata are otherwise healthy. They have hair loss and sometimes nail changes, but they remain in good health. The hair loss tends to be unpredictable. Hair may regrow without treatment. This happens more often when someone has a few bald patches. When the hair regrows, it may fall out again—or it may not,” the American Academy of Dermatology Association (AAD) reports.
