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Jada Pinkett Smith says Chris Rock once asked her out amid rumors that she and Will Smith were getting a divorce.
The actress, 52, discusses the moment in her new memoir Worthy, which is available for preorder right now ahead of its October 17 release, and clarified the interaction further in an exclusive interview with People. Though the date proposal happened years before their 2016 public beef and Will infamously slapping Chris at the Oscars in 2022, Jada’s revelation does add more context to the relationship between the comedian and the couple.
“I think every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce. And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce,” Jada told People in an October 11 interview. “So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’ 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.”
Jada, who reveals in her book that she and Will have been separated for seven years, told People that she has not spoken to Chris, 58, since the Oscars. “[Do I have] any desire to talk to Chris? Here’s my desire: I just hope that all the misunderstanding around this can be cleared up and that there can be peace,” she told the outlet.
“I talk about this in the book, I think that there might be some misunderstanding between Chris and I as far as the 2016 Oscars. I think that 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.”
What Jada is referring to is her support of the #OscarsSoWhite movement, that called for a boycott of the award show in 2016 after no actors of color were nominated, including Will who was looked over for his performance in Concussion.
Chris, who was the host of the show that year, joked about Jada in his monologue and claimed in a comedy show earlier this year that the actress had called him to urge him to quit the hosting gig.
Jada admitted to People that she was guilty of “not really recognizing the level of pressure [Chris] might’ve been under” at the time. “I probably should have called him and gone, ‘Hey, are you okay? 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,” she said.
She added: “All we can ever do is just look at our part and see where could I have done something that would’ve seemed as if… Whatever misunderstanding might’ve been created, what could I have done to avoid that misunderstanding? The one thing that I think about is that call.”
However, Jada says Chris did call her after the 2016 Oscars and she assumed they buried the hatchet until he again took a jab at her during the Oscars in 2022. Jada says Chris did apologize for the joke about her alopecia that night when he came into the audience to speak to her after the altercation with Will.
“He said, ‘I didn’t mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can’t talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s—.’ 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.”
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