Jada Pinkett Smith has survived a tough childhood, the streets of Baltimore, and even the ups and downs of a Hollywood career. But nothing could have prepared her for the 2022 Oscars — and she was merely a witness.
In the chapter of her new book Worthy titled “The Holy Joke, the Holy Slap, and Holy Lessons,” Jada reveals what it was like to be made fun of for her alopecia by Chris Rock and then witness her husband Will Smith assaulting Chris on live television.
First of all, she, like a lot of viewers at home, did not think it was real. “When Chris was still standing afterward, I believed my observation to be true: Aha, this IS a skit,” she writes.
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Jada also gets into more detail about the history between Chris and Will, plus her own history with Chris (this was the second time he had made fun of her at the Oscars, the first time being in 2016).
Here, Jada goes back to the night of March 27, 2022, in an exclusive excerpt from Worthy, out Oct. 17.
I had my own premonition right before the incident on the Oscar stage. It flashed through my mind as Chris Rock’s face came across the screen as one of the presenters that night. In fact, my stomach clenched. He had been known to take swipes at me — and from the Oscar stage, no less. That had been in 2016, six years earlier, during what became known as #OscarsSoWhite.
Trying to be optimistic, I told myself, A lot of time has passed, it’s the Academy Awards, there are no new misunderstandings, and I’m sure he’ll play nice. But another thought was, He’s not going to be able to help himself.
When Chris came out to present an award, made some jokes, got lots of laughs, and, like comics do, decided to milk his time onstage, he saw me and my bald head and ad-libbed: “Jada, I love ya, G.I. Jane Two, can’t wait to see it.”
Just like I’d thought, he wasn’t able to help himself, and I rolled my eyes.
It was not because of the jab at my alopecia but, honestly, about the people I had met whose condition was far worse than mine. That was indeed a very light joke, as many expressed, but it was not about me. I was frustrated that the majority of folks can’t seem to understand how devastating alopecia can be. My heart broke for the many who live in shame, the children who have committed suicide after being teased and taunted by their classmates. And now the Oscars, in all its political correctness, was telling the world it was okay to make jokes at the expense of a woman suffering from alopecia?
It’s not until Will yells from his seat back up at Chris to “keep my wife’s name out your f—in’ mouth,” and then repeats it, that I perceive the gravity of the situation, and that, no, it had not been a skit. Even so, I am unclear on the reason why Will is so upset. We had been living separate lives and were there as family, not as husband and wife. But when I hear Will yell “wife” in the chaos of the moment, an internal shift of Oh s— . . . I am his wife! happens instantly.
This is when sixteen-year-old Jada appeared — I’m back in a club back in Baltimore, a fight has broken out, and s— could start popp’n. I’m aware that I’m at the Oscars in a beautiful but very heavy forest-green dress with a high neck, a zipper bodice, and a train a thousand miles long, and I’ve had to stay seated all evening. But no matter how much growth I’ve recently experienced, my old mechanisms are driving, and my mind is racing with, Oh s—, if I have to fight or run, I’m done! I can’t even get up! But no matter what, Will and I are in this together.
From Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith. Copyright © 2023 by RedDot Publishing, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Dey Street, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
For more on Jada Pinkett Smith, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
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