Jada Pinkett Smith, who is promoting her new memoir, Worthy, says that Chris Rock asked her on a date prior to husband Will Smith slapping the comedian at the 2022 Oscars ceremony.
The Matrix actress writes about Rock asking her on the date in Worthy, according to People. In an interview with the publication that published online Wednesday, Pinkett Smith said that Rock’s offer followed media reports claiming that she and Smith were set to divorce.
“I think every summer all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce,” Pinkett Smith said. “And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce. 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?'”
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She continued, “I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologized, and that was that.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Rock’s representatives for comment.
During a Wednesday interview with Hoda Kotb on Today, Pinkett Smith revealed that she and Smith have lived separate lives since 2016 but do not plan to legally divorce. They tied the knot in 1997 and have two adult children, Jaden and Willow.
In her interview with People, Pinkett Smith also said that she hasn’t spoken to Rock since Smith slapped the comedian on the stage during the Academy Awards telecast that aired March 27, 2022. The confrontation followed Rock joking onstage about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head. The actress had previously spoken publicly about living with alopecia.
“Chris came down to the end of the stage and tried to apologize to me,” Pinkett Smith recalled about the immediate aftermath of the Oscars incident. “He said, ‘I didn’t mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can’t talk about this now, Chris. This is some old shit.'”
She added that she initially assumed that the 2022 situation was related to Pinkett Smith having called for a boycott of the 2016 Academy Awards ceremony — which Rock hosted — amid the #OscarsSoWhite movement. In his 2016 Oscars monologue, Rock joked about Pinkett Smith boycotting the awards show by quipping that she wouldn’t have been invited.
“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,” Pinkett Smith continued. “I’ve got to leave that to Will and Chris to talk about, but they got their stuff for sure.”
