Jada pushes Will to apologize to Chris despite he ‘never wanted to’ – he hoped it would ‘go away’

Advice from his wife. Jada Pinkett has called on Will Smith to apologize to Chris Rock after seeing her husband “in hell” over the controversy that doesn’t seem to be “going away”.

A source said We Weekly on August 1, 2022, that Jada – who has been married to Will since 1997 – is the one who convinced The prince of Bel-Air alum to publicly apologize to Chris for punching him on live TV during the 94th Academy Awards in March 2022.” Jada also pushed Will to apologize because it’s become this very dark cloud on his Red Table Talk series,” the insider said. , adding that Will “never wanted” to apologize to Chris but knew the public was waiting for “any mention of this moment”.

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The source also told Us Weekly that Will has been “in hell” since his altercation with Chris and wants to find a way to “move on” without talking about the slap again. “His team had hoped the controversy would die down, but that’s just not the case,” the insider said. “It would be impossible for him to advance successfully unless he [addressed the slap].”

Will made headlines at the Oscars in March 2022 after he slapped Chris for making a joke about Jada’s bald head, which he took as an insult to his wife’s long-standing battle with alopecia. Four months after the incident, Will took to his YouTube, Instagram and Facebook accounts with a public apology to Chris for his behavior that night. “I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk,” Will said in a message to Chris. “I reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk, and when he is he’ll contact me,” Will said. “So I’ll tell you, Chris, I apologize. My behavior was unacceptable and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.

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Will, who won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in King Richard that night – also explained why he didn’t apologize to Chris in his Oscars acceptance speech. “I was foggy at that time. Everything is blurry,” he said. Will also told viewers he wanted to apologize to Chris’ mother, Rose Rock, who told WIS-TV in April 2022 that Chris slapping her son also “hurt” her. “When he slapped Chris, he slapped us all,” she said at the time. “Because when you hurt my child, you hurt me.”

In his video, titled “It’s been a minute…”, Will confessed that he didn’t realize “how many people” would be hurt by his actions. “I saw an interview his mother did. That’s one of the things about that moment that I didn’t realize, I didn’t think, but how many people were hurt in that moment,” he said. “So I want to apologize to Chris’ mom; I want to apologize to Chris’ family, especially Tony Rock [Chris’s younger brother]. We had a great relationship. Tony Rock was my man. It’s probably irreparable.

Will ended his video by telling viewers that he’s spent the past three months since the Oscars “replaying” the moment with Chris in his mind. “I spent the last three months replaying and understanding the complexities and nuances of what happened,” he said. “I’m not going to try to unpack all of that now, but I can tell you there was no part of me that thought that was the right way to behave at the time.”

As for Chris, the comedian has referenced the slap in various stand-up performances over the past two months, however, he has yet to speak at length about the timing. During a stand-up performance with Kevin Hart in July 2022, Chris responded to claims that he was a “victim” of Will. During a Sunday stand-up alongside Kevin Hart at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey, Chris said, “I’m not a victim, motherfucker,” he said, according to Us Weekly. “Anyone who says words hurt has never been punched in the face.”

Chris also shaded Will during a stand-up performance in Holmdel, New Jersey on July 24, 2022, where he poked fun at the incident. “Anyone who says words hurt has never been punched in the face,” he said. Chris also called Will “Suge Smith”, a reference to the currently incarcerated CEO of Death Row Records, Suge Knight, who was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2018 for manslaughter. Later in his set, Chris also denied being a “victim” of Will. “I am not a victim, mother,” he said. “Yeah, that hurts, motherfucker. But I shook that shit off and went to work the next day…I don’t go to the hospital for a paper cut.

Buy: ‘Will’ by Will Smith $16.69

For more on Will Smith, read his memoir, Will be. The book, which was number one on the New York Times bestseller list, takes readers through Smith’s life, from his childhood in West Philadelphia and his early rapping days to his rise as a one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars. The autobiography – which Oprah Winfrey has described as “the best memoir I have ever read” – also explores an aspect of Smith’s life that he has never told before. “Will be is the story of how one person mastered their own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone do the same,” reads the publisher’s description of the book. “Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the biggest stages in the world for the highest stakes, but we can all appreciate that the fuel that works for one leg of our journey may need to be changed if we want to make it all the way home.

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