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.
I really didn’t. I scanned the excerpt and saw his name.
Bread and circuses.
It was an obvious publicity stunt and the sheep swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
“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”
No difference at all really. In both cases these people have a medical conditions that cause baldness.
I skimmed the excerpt. Reading the whole article would violate an unwritten rule: “Thou shall not read the linked article before scanning the replies or commenting.”
Smith, an action/adventure actor, supposedly slapped Chris Rock in belligerence, he was asked to leave, he wouldn’t leave, and then they hand him an Oscar. We’re supposed to believe it was real. I’m not so convinced.
My gut feeling is this was all a set up to gin up more interest in the oscars. They all want attention. (LOOK AT ME!!!).
BS all the way.
I think so too. The media is the master of perception.
Or he could have said something about Jada keeping things out of her mouth. All of it will get said for a long time. Will Smith has been driven crazy by being married to a sloot.
Most of the black women in the audience were wearing wigs. But Pinkett appears to be an exhibitionist.
Would Will Smith be getting all this heat if he’d slapped a white guy?
Would Will Smith be getting all this heat if he’d slapped a white guy?
Heat? Or, free PR?
Jada fooling around with Will Smith would say “Oh Tupac!”
Or “You were almost as good as Tupac”.....
Airplane!(1980) The Slap Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIew7_ovzSs
Williams also doesn’t believe the Academy should ask Smith to return the Best Actor award he received Sunday.
Will Smith will respond that his wife Jada Picket has used the Oscar as a sex toy as he himself cannot satisfy her.... : )
I think this could be Will Smith but then again I could be wrong....
No, that’s Zola Budd and Mary Decker.
As a girl who has shaved her head more than once or twice - not to get rid of cooties, but A) because I was in a punk rock band and B) the weather was hot and my long hair was really bothering me - I just want to say that a couple of times when I did this (shave myself bald) I was threatened with the loss of my job. This was in the 1990s when everyone was coming out as a f@gwad. If I would have said I was gay, my extreme butch cut would have been tolerated. I wish they would have joked about it, you know?
(In fact, if a client or somebody had said something mean about my “hairstyle” that person might have been scolded. IF I had said I was gay. But a straight bald chick aint okay! Once or twice when someone heckled me about my [lack of] hair I got a quivery lip and teared up, and my friend would say - “ARE YOU DONE BULLYING MY FRIEND WHO JUST STARTED CHEMOTHERAPY??!!” Not a particularly sensitive joke, I know.)
They didn’t like my “creeper” shoes, either. I did get the distinct impression that I was being pressured to say I was a l3sbian just so I could keep being a weirdo without persecution.
Also, regarding what to do about someone slapping you for insulting his wife: The opportunity is long past, sir, when you could/should have done something. Time to let it go. Look into the mirror, take a deep breath, and tell yourself that you are a pu$$y.
I think you may be on to something there.
Bingo. A dominatrix, not to be outdone by "her" man. By any sane measure, it should have been his night to be celebrated for his work. But she made it all about her.
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