Jada Pinkett Smith Returns With Red Table Talk, Opens Up About Deep Healing After Oscars Slap Incident

Jada Pinkett-Smith returned with the fifth season of her chat show Red Table Talk. The actress finally opened up about what went down with the Oscar slap incident involving Will Smith and how the family is dealing with it.

The episode released on Wednesday (April 20), marked the first episode of the show since the Oscars 2022 in March. The Facebook series made a brief reference to Will Smith's Oscars slap at the beginning of the video, but only on title cards. It was not talked about during the pre-taped episode.

Jada's statement said the family has been focusing on deep healing and added that some of it will be shared in other episodes. The cards read, "Considering all that has happened in the last few weeks, the Smith family has been focusing on deep healing. Some of the discoveries around our healing will be shared at the table when the time calls."

She further explained, "Until then... the table will continue offering itself to powerful, inspiring and healing testimonies like that of our incredibly impressive first guest. Thanks for joining us."

Jada during the episode was joined by mother Adrienne Banfield Norris and daughter Willow Smith, who also discuss a wide range of topics with guest Janelle Monáe.

Notably, during the 2022 Oscars live telecast Chris Rock had compared Pinkett-Smith - who suffers from alopecia and shaved her head last summer - to Demi Moore's bald character GI Jane. The joke prompted Will Smith to get up on the stage and slap the comedian.

Smith later received the Best Actor Oscar for his role in King Richard and apologised for the incident during his acceptance speech. Since then Will has also publicly apologised to Rock. However, after the incident, the Smith family received a lot of backlash which led the Academy to launch an investigation.

Smith has now been banned for 10 years from attending any Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences events, including the Oscars. Smith also released a statement resigned from the Academy. It means he won't be able to vote on future Oscars nominations.