Chris Rock’s younger brother Kenny says if the comedian had known about Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia he would not have made a joke about her hair at the Oscars.
At the 94th annual Academy Awards on March 27, Chris, 57, presented the award for Best Documentary Feature, cracking jokes before handing out the accolade. Motioning to Jada in the audience, he said, “Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,” comparing her shaved head to Demi Moore’s hairdo in the 1997 movie G.I. Jane. When Jada appeared unamused by the gag, Chris said, “That was a nice one!”
Moments later, Will, 53, walked onstage and struck Chris, who was initially speechless. Will shouted, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f—–g mouth!”
Jada, 50, has previously been open about living with hair loss caused by alopecia, though Chris’s brother Kenny, 42, told the Los Angeles Times Monday he wasn’t aware: “The joke was funny. It wasn’t hilarious funny, but I know that if he knew that she had alopecia … he wouldn’t make a joke about that. But he didn’t know.”
Kenny added of seeing his sibling being hit on live television, “It eats at me watching it over and over again because you’ve seen a loved one being attacked and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Every time I’m watching the videos, it’s like a rendition that just keeps going over and over in my head. My brother was no threat to him and you just had no respect for him at that moment. You just belittled him in front of millions of people that watch the show,” he said.
When Will won Best Actor for King Richard soon after, he did not apologize directly to Chris in his speech, though he did the next day in a statement, admitting, “I was out of line and I was wrong.” Will explained, “Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.”
Said Kenny, “I might have looked at it differently had he initially apologized when he got on the stage and cried and accepted the award, but he didn’t, so, right there that tells me that it is something else.”
Will has since resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, further apologizing for his actions, calling his behavior “shocking, painful and inexcusable.”
The list of those I have hurt is long and includes Chris, his family, many of my dear friends and loved ones, all those in attendance, and global audiences at home,” said Will, later adding, “Change takes time and I am committed to doing the work to ensure that I never again allow violence to overtake reason.”
Kenny told the L.A. Times of the apology, “No, I don’t accept it because I don’t think it was genuine. I think his publicist and the people that work under him probably advised him to do that.”
“He belittled my brother,” he added. “He had no respect for him. In my opinion, he embarrassed himself by doing that and his legacy by doing that.”
Following the incident, Jada shared a message on Instagram saying, “This is a season for healing and I’m here for it.” Less than a week before the Oscars, Jada said in a social media upload while discussing her hair journey, “I don’t give two craps what people think of this bald head of mine. Because guess what? I love it.”
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