Chris Rock allegedly asked Jada Pinkett Smith out on a date amid divorce rumors
CNN
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s marriage has been a topic of interest for many in recent years, even to Chris Rock, according to Pinkett Smith.
“Every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce,” Pinkett Smith told People magazine. “And this particular summer, Chris [Rock], he thought that we were getting a divorce. So he called me and basically he was like, ‘I’d love to take you out.’”
Pinkett Smith said she was taken aback by the call.
“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,’” Pinket Smith recalled. “He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.”
CNN has reached out to representatives for Rock for comment.
Pinkett Smith writes about the encounter in her forthcoming memoir, “Worthy.”
Her husband, Will Smith, slapped Rock as he was presenting an award during the 2022 Oscars telecast after Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith being bald. She suffers from alopecia, which has caused her hair loss.
Pinkett Smith told People that she believed there had been a “misunderstanding between Chris and I as far as the 2016 Oscars.”
That year Rock was hosting the awards show and Pinkett Smith called for a boycott as part of the #OscarsSoWhite movement after her husband was overlooked for a nomination for his performance in “Concussion.”
She now says she may not have been aware of the “level of pressure” Rock may have been under at the time.
“I probably should have called him and gone, ‘Hey, are you okay?,’” she said. “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.”
The pair spoke and apologized to each other after the 2016 incident, she said.
Pinkett Smith said Rock tried to talk to her during a break in the 2022 Oscars ceremony following the slap in an attempt to apologize to her.
“He said, ‘I didn’t mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can’t talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s**t,’” she told People. “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.”
Her memoir is set to be published Oct. 17.
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