Jada Pinkett Smith revealed Chris Rock asked her out on a date during a time when it was rumored she was divorcing Will Smith.
“Basically, he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out,'” Pinkett Smith said in a new People interview published Wednesday.
“And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He was like, ‘Well, aren’t you and Will getting a divorce?’ I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that,” Pinkett Smith, who’s promoting her upcoming memoir, “Worthy,” explained.
Pvnew reached out to Rock’s publicist for a comment, but we didn’t receive an immediate response.
The “Red Table Talk” host, 52, also revealed that she and her Oscar-winning husband were secretly separated for six years before the 2022 Oscars, when Smith stormed up on stage and slapped Rock for making a joke about Pinkett Smith’s hairstyle.
Rock, 58, made a quip about the actress’ shaved head, which caused Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia, to roll her eyes.
The “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” star, who later won the Best Actor award for his role in “King Richard,” strode up on stage and forcefully smacked Rock on the face before turning around and screaming profanities from his seat.
The “Girls Trip” star said that initially, she “thought it was a skit.” However, soon thereafter, the truth set in.
“From where I was sitting I couldn’t tell. It didn’t look like Will hit Chris, because, number one, I’d seen Will in the boxing ring with pro fighters — Will’s a heavy-hitter. So when Chris moved, it looked like he ducked or he missed the shot. And when he continued to stand, and then when he continued to walk down to the end of the stage, I was like, ‘There’s no way. There’s no way that Will hit him.’”
She added, “It wasn’t until Will started to walk back to his chair that I even realized it wasn’t a skit. I was in as much of a fog as anybody else in that room that night.”
Smith, 55, later apologized and resigned from the Academy. He was subsequently banned from attending their events for 10 years and released a video apologizing to Rock.
Pinkett Smith said that she wasn’t offended by the joke despite having “my feelings hurt a lot by Chris” in the past.
“I mean, that’s what comedians do,” she explained. “I would just have to say that I am not really here to make any judgment on how people decide to express themselves and express their art. I’ll say that several times I’ve had my feelings hurt, for sure. I’ve had my feelings hurt a lot by Chris. But at the end of the day, too, being in the spotlight, it comes with the territory.”
In the aftermath of the assault, Pinkett Smith remembered that she tried to “keep myself grounded and settle for the people around us, and specifically for Will” in the immediate aftermath. The first thing she said to Will afterward was: ‘Are you okay?’
“I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I just knew, one thing I’ve realized in everything I’ve been through is stay calm, stay clear. Just so you can keep your awareness on what is happening around you.”
Pinkett Smith shared that her up-and-down relationship with her “Madagascar” co-star goes back to the 2016 Oscars, when Smith was overlooked for his performance in “Concussion” and no actors of color were nominated, prompting the #OscarsSoWhite movement, and a call for the show to be boycotted.
She was vocal in supporting the boycott of the award show, which Rock was hosting that year, and believes “he might’ve taken offense, which I meant no harm in offending. That wasn’t my intention. But I do think that there’s a big misunderstanding there.”
Rock, who went on to make jokes about Pinkett Smith in his 2016 Oscars monologue and 2023 Netflix comedy special, claimed that she had told him he should back out of the hosting gig to show solidarity.
The “Bad Moms” star said she hasn’t spoken to Rock since the infamous slap, but hopes the “misunderstanding around this can be cleared up and that there can be peace.”
“Worthy” hits bookshelves on Oct. 17.
