Actress and talk show host Jada Pinkett Smith has revealed that even Chris Rock had expressed interest in the state of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s marriage in recent years, which has attracted a lot of media attention.
“Every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce,” Pinkett Smith told People magazine. “And this particular summer, Chris [Rock], he thought that we were getting a divorce. So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’”
Pinkett Smith expressed surprise at the phone call from Chris Rock.
“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,’” Pinket Smith recalled. “He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.”
CNN has attempted to contact Chris Rock’s representatives for a response.
Jada Pinkett Smith recounts this incident in her upcoming memoir, “Worthy.”
During the 2022 Oscars telecast, her husband, Will Smith, slapped Chris Rock on stage when Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s baldness, resulting from her alopecia condition.
Pinkett Smith told People magazine that she believed there might have been a “misunderstanding between Chris and I regarding the 2016 Oscars.”
In 2016, Rock was hosting the Oscars, and Pinkett Smith called for a boycott as part of the #OscarsSoWhite movement after her husband was not nominated for his role in “Concussion.”
She now says she may not have been aware of the “level of pressure” Rock may have been under at the time.
“I probably should have called him and gone, ‘Hey, are you okay?,’” she said. “And just know that although I’m speaking out about the Oscars, I do wish you the best and I just want you to know that,’ me taking the time to have called him and said that, just to touch base. But his feelings might’ve been hurt.”
They reconciled after the 2016 incident and offered apologies to each other, according to Pinkett Smith.
During the 2022 Oscars ceremony, following the slap, Rock made an effort to talk to her during a break and extend his apology.
“He said, ‘I didn’t mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can’t talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s**t,’” she told People. “I thought this was [about] the Oscar 2016 and … their stuff that they had before I even came into the picture in the late ’80s. I’ve got to leave that to Will and Chris to talk about, but they got their stuff for sure.”
Her memoir is set to be published Oct. 17.