Oscar Awards Will Smith, sanctioned with a decade of absence at the Oscars
For days after the incident,
Jada Pinkett Smith
opted for silence, except for a terse and subtle statement on Instagram.
Now, the 50-year-old actress has spoken for the first time about her husband Will Smith's assault on comedian Chris Rock during the Oscars.
Smith hopes the two can reconcile
after the assault that led to the
Independence Day
star's exclusion from Hollywood Academy events for a decade.
"My great hope is that these smart, capable men have a chance to heal, talk about this and reconcile," he said during an episode of his
Red Table Talk
show on Facebook Watch,
in which they discussed alopecia.
It was a joke about the condition suffered by the actress - Rock compared her to the character in the 1997 film
GI Jane
- which unleashed the fury of Will Smith, who did not hesitate to get on stage at the Dolby Theater and hit the comedian in full ceremony.
"In the current state of the world, we need both of you," he continued.
"And we actually need each other more than ever," she said.
"While that's going on,
Will and I are still doing what we've been doing for the last 28 years,
which is nothing more than trying to continue to discover this thing called life together."
The interpreter of
Matrix Reloaded
assures that she has received many expressions of affection and support for her alopecia problem since the Oscar ceremony on March 27.
"Considering what I've been through with my own health and what happened at the Oscars, thousands have contacted me with stories about her,"
she noted.
She says the hardest part of it is when the disease "comes and goes," forcing her to shave her head because her growing hair is falling out.
Days after the attack, Chris Rock decided to continue with a tour of various parts of the country.
Smith, for his part, chose to disappear from the public eye and apologize to the comedian himself.
"Violence in all its forms is poisonous and destructive,"
he wrote on his Instagram account.
"My behavior at the Academy Awards last night was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are part of the job, but a joke about Jada's medical condition was too much for me and I reacted emotionally," he noted.
"I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris (Rock). I was out of line and I was wrong. I am ashamed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be.
There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness."
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