After Will Smith hit Chris Rock at the Oscars for making a joke about his wife, who has alopecia, an old video of the actor went viral online. There he allegedly made a joke about a man suffering from baldness. We checked whether this is true.
At the 94th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place on the night of March 27-28, Will Smith distinguished himself twice: he won his first Oscar (in the Leading Actor category for a sports drama "King Richard"), and before the announcement, he slapped comedian Chris Rock, who was announcing the nomination for “Best Documentary.”
The reason for the blow was a joke addressed to Jada Pinkett-Smith, Will's wife, whom the comedian compared to the bald heroine Demi Moore from the film "GI Jane" (G.I. Jane). Smith then shouted profanely a couple of times for Rock not to say his wife's name again. The fact is that Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia - pathological hair loss, so she cuts her hair bald.
By the way, this is not the first time Rock joked about Pinkett Smith during the Oscars. Thus, the comedian was the host of the entire 2016 ceremony, which was criticized for the lack of black people in the main categories. In this regard, Jada was one of the stars who called for to boycott the film awards. But in her message to Rock, she said this: “Hey Chris, I won't be at the ceremony and I won't be watching. But I can’t think of a better person to serve as emcee this year than you, my friend.” Rock, during his monologue, went through the boycotters, having mentioned and Pinkett Smith: “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties.” I wasn't invited."
The slap incident immediately gave birth to new meme and divided people into three camps. Some approve of Smith's prank, others condemn it, and still others even believe that what happened was staged to increase ratings. However, shortly after the ceremony, an old video surfaced on the Internet in which the actor was a guest on the program “The Arsenio Hall Show.” There, Will Smith allegedly made a joke about a balding man himself, which is why some users accused the actor of duplicity and hypocrisy. The video went viral in Twitter, and also got into "VKontakte" And Telegram.
In a viral video, a young Smith joked about bald musician John B. Williams. The actor said the following to him: “Here is the bass player, he has a rule: he rubs his head with wax every morning. He follows this rule. Come on, it's just a joke! Posts about videos are usually accompany with a caption stating that “the Internet remembers everything” and that Williams suffers from alopecia, the same disease as Smith’s wife.
How report our colleagues from Factcheck.kz, editors of the Snopes website confirmed the authenticity of the video is a real recording ether show from February 1991 (an extended clip of Smith is on YouTube - there is a joke sounds at the 6:30 mark). In addition, they checked biography Williams on his website, profiles musician and some his interview and found no mention of alopecia or evidence of his baldness.
Note that Pinkett Smith publicly spoke about baldness known at least since 2018. “I get asked a lot of questions about why I wear a turban. Well, I had problems with hair loss. And it was terrible when it first started,” she explained. According to her, at first she was very afraid of being left without hair, but in the end she cut it herself. There are several different types of alopecia, but media reports based on on the stories and videos of Jada herself, assumedwhat does she have focal form, that is, when hair falls out in certain areas of the head and body.
How it started: How it’s going: pic.twitter.com/rwnNtY92cw
— Jada Pinkett Smith (@jadapsmith) July 15, 2021
After the publication of Snopes in Rolling Stone magazine it turned out interview with Williams, 81, who learned about the Oscars incident from his grandson. Williams recalls the event 30 years ago this way: “I didn’t take his words seriously. He was a comedian. He was the Prince of Bel-Air. He was a rapper. I took it as a joke. I laughed at her."
However, according to the musician, while Smith and Rock's jokes are clearly similar, they differ in two important ways. First, Williams said he does not have alopecia. He decided to shave his head because the texture of his hair had changed after he was treated for measles. Secondly, Williams believes that Smith could not take the joke normally because the target of the joke was his wife, not himself: “Chris Rock is a comedian. I like Chris Rock. When Chris first made his comment, Will laughed. And only when it became clear that Jada was not funny, Will came to her defense. Love makes us do different things. This is his wife, whom he loves. He simply reacted in a fit of anger. Sometimes I myself reacted to something in a fit of anger.” The musician is sorry that everything happened this way, because he likes them both.
Smith himself first apologized to the entire Film Academy and the nominees at the ceremony itself. The next day the actor published post on his social networks, where he already apologized to Rock, as well as to the producers, visitors and spectators of the ceremony. There he wrote that “violence in all its forms is disgusting and destructive,” and called his behavior “unacceptable and unforgivable.”
Thus, in the 90s, Smith really made fun of a bald man, but he did not suffer from alopecia and his hair did not fall out, as claimed on social networks.
Image: video screenshot Access
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