Will and Jada face their toughest challenge yet
WE’RE ALL FAMILIAR with the big story from this year’s Oscars. Chris Rock came on to present an award and joked that Jada Pinkett Smith looked like GI Jane, a reference to her shaved head. She has talked openly about struggling with alopecia so, clearly hurt, rolled her eyes. But husband Will Smith, 53, took to the stage and slapped the 57-year-old comedian across the face, then shouted, ‘Keep my wife’s name out your f**king mouth.’
With Jada overshadowed by the action of two men, many were wondering what she really thought about the aftermath. Soon after, she posted on Instagram, ‘This is a season for healing and I’m here for it,’ suggesting she wanted to strike a conciliatory note. But, since then, a video has emerged from the ceremony that appears to show Jada laughing at the slap and Chris’s reaction to it.
Immediately following the incident, Will was seen speaking to his publicist. But, if he wants to rehabilitate his image, it’s going to take time – and reinvention. ‘At this time of crisis, there’s an opportunity,’ PR guru Mark Borkowski tells Grazia. ‘Will and Jada are the Barack and Michelle Obama of the movie world, they always attract the best people to support them – agents, business managers, publicists. If you can still magnetise the best people to your team, there’s always chance for a new story. But there will have to be a new story.’
Still, if any couple can cope with the public scrutiny, it’s probably the Smiths. At 25 years, theirs is one of the most enduring marriages in Hollywood, but not without its controversies. In 2020, Jada admitted having a relationship with musician August Alsina while she and Will were briefly separated. Then he fuelled speculation of an
open marriage by telling GQ that ‘marriage for us can’t be a prison’.
Family members, including their children – Jaden, 23, and Willow, 21 – often appear on Red Table Talk, Jada’s tell-all talk show on Facebook Watch, and it was on the show that she first revealed her alopecia, in 2018, describing how hair loss left her ‘shaking with fear’. It was also where Jada and Will discussed her ‘entanglement’ with August. ‘I just wanted to feel good,’ she explained. Will later told Oprah, ‘We agreed she had to make herself happy, and I had to make myself happy. And then we were going to present ourselves back to the relationship.’
The revelations opened the couple up to criticism and even ridicule from some. ‘It’s common knowledge that Will felt a lot of his peers – including Chris – were laughing at him behind his back after Jada’s affair,’ says an insider. ‘That really hurt his ego, so to say Chris pushed his buttons by going after Jada is an understatement.’
The fallout from the Oscars could present the couple’s biggest challenge yet. ‘Getting back in Hollywood’s good graces is going to take a lot of humility,’ continues the insider. That might not have been evident straight after the Awards, when the smiling couple went partying with their kids.
But as Grazia went to press, Chris – while declining to press charges or give a full response – told the audience at his latest comedy gig that his reaction would ‘be serious’. Facing growing pressure, the Academy condemned Will’s behaviour and launched disciplinary procedures that mean he could be suspended from the Academy.
Will, meanwhile, has apologised for his actions, including to Chris, calling violence ‘poisonous and destructive’ – but it might take more than an apology to salvage his reputation. As for the implications for his marriage, for once a very public couple are keeping things private – for now.