Jada Pinkett Smith Recalls The Time Chris Rock Asked Her Out Amid Will Smith Split Rumours

Chris Rock once asked Jada Pinkett Smith out amid rumours that she and husband Will were getting divorced, according to the Red Table Talk host.

The Girls Trip actor told People in an interview published on Wednesday that the comedian had reached out to her in the summer of 2016 following reports in the press around that time claiming that she and Will were ending their marriage.

“I think every summer, all the reports would come out that me and Will were getting a divorce. And this particular summer, Chris, he thought that we were getting a divorce,” Jada said.

“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?’ I was like, ‘No. Chris, those are just rumours.’”

She continued, “He was appalled. And he profusely apologised, and that was that.”

Jada also mentions that 2016 phone call in her new memoir, Worthy, People reported. Worthy is due out on 17 October.

A representative for Chris Rock did not immediately return a request for comment from HuffPost.

Jada also shocked fans this week after she revealed that she and her husband had been separated since 2016. 

The powerhouse couple, who wed in 1997, have been living “completely several lives,” she told US broadcaster Hoda Kotb in a clip from the interview shown on The Today Show on Wednesday.

She added that although the two are legally married, their separation has felt like a “divorce”.

Jada has been entangled in headlines since Will infamously slapped Chris Rock on stage at the 2022 Oscars after the comedian took a dig at the Matrix Reloaded actor’s buzzcut hairstyle. In the past, Jada has been open about her experiences of alopecia.

She told People that Chris had tried apologising to her after the incident but that she relayed to him that she wasn’t ready to talk to him. She also hinted that Chris and Will have had issues that stem back to the late ’80s.

“I’ve got to leave that to Will and Chris to talk about, but they got their stuff for sure,” she said.

But the Set it Off star also said that she believed the comic’s animosity toward her derived from a “misunderstanding” between the two from the 2016 Oscars. 

Jada had been vocal about boycotting the 2016 Oscars, which, for the second year in a row, had only white performers nominated in the four acting categories. Will was also notably snubbed for his 2015 performance in Concussion.

Chris, who hosted the Academy Awards in 2016, memorably ripped Jada for being vocal about boycotting the show. 

“Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties — I wasn’t invited!” he said onstage at the time. 

She told People this week that she perhaps did not recognise “the level of pressure [Chris] might’ve been under” as Oscars host at the time.

“I probably should have called him and gone, ‘Hey, are you OK? 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’” she said, adding that Chris’ “feelings might’ve been hurt”.

She added that she had a conversation with Chris after the 2016 Oscars and thought the two had moved on. 

“He apologised, and I apologised to him as well,” she said. “So I actually thought that we were good, that the hatchet was buried between us. And we hadn’t talked since then until 2022 came.”