Following the now-viral moment at the Oscars in which Best Actor winner Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage after the comedian made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, fellow actress and friend Tiffany Haddish is arriving to the Oscar-winning legend’s defense.
“When I saw a Black man stand up for his wife. That meant so much to me,” Haddish said to People magazine after the ceremony. “As a woman, who has been unprotected, for someone to say like, ‘Keep my wife’s name out your mouth, leave my wife alone,’ that’s what your husband is supposed to do, right? Protect you. And that meant the world to me. And maybe the world might not like how it went down, but for me, it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.”
Haddish also took Rock to task for his joke, which seemed to mock Jada’s battle with alopecia, which causes hair loss.
“And that’s their friend,” Haddish added of Rock. “As a friend, why would you do that? He didn’t even run the joke by her, but she was hurt, though. If she wouldn’t have been hurt, he probably wouldn’t have said nothing. But you could see he was clearly … And they exploited it. They exploited her, so … He protected his wife. To me, I went up to her and said, ‘You better suck his d**k from the back, girl!’ You better put that in your magazine! That’s what I told her.”
Haddish and Pinkett Smith’s relationship is no surprise, as the two actresses starred together in the critically acclaimed and commercially successful 2017 film Girls Trip. In the wake of the now-viral moment, Smith took home the Academy Award for his role in the film King Richard and received a standing ovation from the audience.
