Posted on 03/30/2022 3:15:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Bass player John B. Williams, who was on the receiving end of a bald joke cracked by Will Smith on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1991, calls the Oscars slap “unfortunate”
Bass player John B. Williams clearly remembers the moment more than 30 years ago when Will Smith pointed him out during an episode of The Arsenio Hall Show and cracked a joke about his bald head.
“I didn’t take it seriously. He was a comedian. He was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He was a rapper. I took it as a joke. I laughed it off,” Williams, 81, tells Rolling Stone in his first interview since a clip of the 1991 exchange started going viral.
He’s also adamant what happened Sunday night was different, and he can “sympathize” with Smith.
Williams, who played in Arsenio Hall’s house band, the Posse, was reminded of the 1991 exchange when his grandson showed him the resurfaced video Monday. The clip started blowing up in the aftermath of Smith storming the Oscars stage Sunday night and slapping Chris Rock across the face because the comedian compared Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, to G.I. Jane, a movie character with a buzzcut played by Demi Moore.
Pinkett Smith has been open about her struggle with alopecia, a medical condition causing hair loss that disproportionately affects Black women. It’s not clear if Rock knew that. “Jada, I love ya. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,” Rock said from the stage.
In his joke more than three decades earlier, Smith targeted Williams’ bald head. “The bass player? He got a rule. He got to wax his head every morning. That’s a rule! He follows the rules, man. He follows the rules,” Smith says in the clip unearthed and posted to Twitter by a user with the handle @Peter_OKH
As Smith delivered the joke, the camera cut to Williams, who smiled, laughed and nodded along in amusement. When some members of the audience appeared to groan, Smith retorted, “Oh, these are jokes. Come on!”
Williams says the two jokes — one delivered by Smith and one causing Smith great offense — are clearly similar but also different in two important aspects.
First, Williams does not have alopecia areata, he tells Rolling Stone, referring to the type of alopecia that can cause sudden and patchy hair loss, which Pinkett Smith has discussed on her Instagram. He says a topical treatment he received for a case of the measles affected the texture of his hair, so he decided to shave everything off one day and never looked back.
Second, Smith’s inability to take the joke in jest was because his wife was the target, not himself, Williams says.
“Chris Rock is a comedian. I like Chris Rock. When Chris first made the comment, Will was laughing. It wasn’t until it became obvious Jada didn’t think it was funny that Will went to her defense. Love makes you do all kinds of things. That’s his wife, who he loves. He just reacted from outrage. I have sometimes reacted from outrage,” Williams says.
“Of course, there’s more than one thing to do at that point. I wish he would have used his words first, not second. Maybe they could have worked it out. Unfortunately, that’s not how it happened. It’s unfortunate how it happened,” Williams says.
He was glad Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry were able to pull Smith aside during the show to “talk to him and calm him down,” he says. Williams also doesn’t believe the Academy should ask Smith to return the Best Actor award he received Sunday for his role in King Richard.
Will Smith is a cuck who saw that his beard was unhappy. She wanted him to jump through hoops in a fruitless effort to make her happy. Was he willing to commit violence for her? Was he willing to risk his entire career for her? "C'mon Mr. Sissy Man. Get up on that stage and show me that you're a real man."
Will had no choice.
I don’t believe it was real, and I wish people would stop posting about him.
I do not know for 100% sure, but that is where the evidence points.
going back to last week
this was picked up by the national news, and I made note of it because it was unusual.
then ‘The Alopecia SLAP’
today
https://seetrendexam.com/2022/03/alopecia-treatment-pfizer-march-2022-get-updated-information/
It seems all the fact checker sites disagree with me with, so I am probably wrong I guess.
He was frustrated that she could pilot a hovercraft better than him. So he reacted stupidly. And he was probably high on cocaine.
how about jada defending herself? she is a strong independent woman, right?
“I have alopecia you moron” would have turned the audience against rock. he would have been all alone and the only response would be an apology
game set match
Cuckolded guys often act like Will Smith is acting.
It is a pretense that their marriage is real.
Wow, they are really coming after him now. Hey, Will you’re friends on the left used you, and now they dispise you.
How about Pinkett covering up her head or wearing a wig if she’s sensitive about it?
She’s been wearing her hair short for years. But now it’s a sensitive topic that she supposedly has alopecia. I think she’s a narcissistic attention whore myself.
I have been avoiding all this BS, but today, I happened to see it for the first time, and...it looked completely fake to me.
If the fact checker sites disagree with me, then I guess I am right then, given how they operate.
A lot meaner jokes could have been made at Will’s and Jada’s expense. Has Will stopped crying yet?
She shaved her head because Pfizer (who sponsored the Oscars) are coming out with an Alopecia drug.
Who cares? This is not news - it is to dilute the real news so people can’t see what is going on.
This is a form of propaganda - can’t people here see that?
Don’t look at inflation - focus on actors fighting?
And Rock could have apologized saying that she looked so good he thought it was an intentional buzzcut
There must be nothing else happening in the world if this shit is still being talked about.
No, you are NOT wrong.
I am convinced it was indeed a staged event. Planned and rehersed in advance.
Regardless. Hollywood still sucks.
Smith didn’t seem to care that his wife was messing around with their sons friend - as she said “Because I just needed to feel good”
She’s actually the vampire in that family and Smith her poodle.
From what I have been observing, this has evolved into an Actors vs Comedians feud. And, TBH, the responses by some of the comedians have been downright nasty. Will may end up escaping any legal or formal consequences, but I don’t know if he will ever recover from the wrath of the comedians.
WHO CARES??!!
I guess we, you and I, care enough to look at the thread.
That's about my limit...
Its obvious that Jada wears the pants in that family..she can screw anything that she wants and its all good in Will’s world..you can tell when you look at him he’s miserable. Just look at his kids, I think one of them thinks he’s a girl..the entire family is screwed up he wants out but he cant leave
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