I think it’s fair to say that nobody could forget the “slap heard around the world.”
At the 94th Annual Academy Awards in March 2022, Will Smith slapped award presenter Chris Rock across the face for making a rude joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
The joke—featuring a comment comparing Pinkett Smith to G.I. Jane following the shaving of her head due to alopecia areata, or spot-baldness—caused major controversy among both actors, creating a classic “he said, he said” scenario in the air surrounding them.
While it seemed that Pinkett Smith was the victim of this event and others, recent news realizations have suggested that this may not be the case in its entirety or at all. The Smith family has maintained a rocky history with the media, and they are not strangers to the spotlight.
Especially Jada.
The Smith family has had their fair share of controversy. Starting way back in 2013, Pinkett Smith made comments that led people to speculate an open marriage between her and Smith; it’s a concept that has continued to capture attention all over the globe. That same year, people believed that Smith had cheated on his wife with actress Margot Robbie. Four years later, in 2017, Leah Remini accused Pinkett Smith of having been a Scientologist for a long period of time. Of course, there was the infamous smack at the 2022 Oscars, but this wasn’t the last controversy. In June 2023, the Smiths’ son, Jaden, revealed that Pinkett Smith had introduced the family to psychedelic drugs, which led to more backlash over the questionable parenting style that they had carried out with their children.
The family’s tumultuous relationship with the media continued to worsen over time when on Oct. 11 of this year, Smith and Pinkett Smith revealed information about their marriage that caused even more uproar. On the Today show, an interview with host Hoda Kotb discussed0 the mention of the Smiths’ marriage in Pinkett Smith’s new memoir, Worthy. As the book reveals, Smith and Pinkett Smith have reportedly been separated in their marriage since 2016, and this led to them choosing to live “completely separate lives” that same year. She even went so far as to say she was “shocked” that Smith referred to her as his wife when calling out Chris Rock.
Regardless of the countless questions and concepts regarding the relationship that aren’t fully understood by anybody yet, it’d be simply wrong to not mention Smith’s feelings with all of this.
Obviously, Smith himself has been subject to a lot of mocking and criticism following his outburst at the award show, but it has also recently become clear that he is a victim as well.
Videos have resurfaced from during their separation of Pinkett Smith recording him without his consent, asking him questions that clearly made him uncomfortable, and getting upset when he asked her to stop filming him.
Made prominent, also, was the “relationship” between Pinkett Smith and the late musician, Tupac Shakur. Smith explained that Pinkett Smith is still in love with Shakur, and it was made apparent that this affected their daughter, Willow, as a letter to Shakur was written by the then-11-year-old girl. The letter says, “I know you are alive someplace…Please come back so that mommy can be happy.”
The kicker to this aspect of the story is that Tupac and Jada were never really together. She stated that he once “proposed” to her, which is widely speculated to be a lie. While the two were close, there are numerous accounts of the extent of the relationship, with the only ones suggesting romantic being from Pinkett Smith herself.
The part that hurts my heart the most, though, is the story behind Pinkett Smith’s 40th birthday. Wanting to be the perfect husband, Smith had spent three years and an insane amount of money planning the perfect party for her, starting the day after her 37th birthday. But, when the party happened, Pinkett Smith freaked out and said, “[The party] was the most ridiculous display of [Will’s] ego.”
Following the airing of the aforementioned episode of the Today show, Pinkett Smith did something that had never been done before: she contacted the agency directly to correct the “misconceptions” that Kotb had supposedly spread. In this follow-up, she directly calls out Kotb as she contradicts everything that she had previously said regarding her relationship with Smith, saying that they are “in a state of healing” and “no longer separated.” At one point, she goes so far as to essentially mock Kotb and claim that she had been misrepresented even though her own words were the culprit for that. The entire thing is a completely disrespectful display of misplaced pride.
As many people have already said in the media following the ordeal, Smith is not merely an overzealous husband with a large ego. He is a victim in this too, and it is heartbreaking to watch the whole situation unfold.
