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HADLEY FREEMAN

Jada Pinkett Smith on ‘the slap’ — and her split from Will Smith

Eighteen months after her husband hit Chris Rock at the Oscars, the actress is revealing everything about Hollywood’s most unconventional relationship. Plus, read an extract from her tell-all memoir

Left: Jada Pinkett Smith. Right: Will Smith slaps Chris Rock at the Oscars last year
Left: Jada Pinkett Smith. Right: Will Smith slaps Chris Rock at the Oscars last year
JOE PUGLIESE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. MAKE-UP: BETHANY KARLYN AT OPUS BEAUTY. MANICURIST: YASMEEN. STYLING: NICOLAS BRU AT THE ONLY AGENCY. SWEATER AND CAPE BY MICHAEL KORS. JEWELLERY BY GRACE LEE AND YVONNE LEON. GETTY IMAGES
The Sunday Times

The thing that people get wrong about that Oscars night, says Jada Pinkett Smith, is they think it was her fault. As everyone and their dog knows by now, on March 27, 2022, the comedian Chris Rock, one of the Oscars presenters that night, spotted Pinkett Smith in the audience next to her husband, Will Smith, who was the favourite to win best actor for his performance in King Richard, the biopic of the tennis-playing sisters Venus and Serena Williams and their coach father. Pinkett Smith has alopecia and had recently started shaving her head and Rock made an off-the-cuff crack about her resembling GI Jane. Smith got out of his seat, went on stage and slapped Rock. The world reeled. “Keep my wife’s