Chris Rock once asked Jada Pinkett Smith out while she was still married

Last Updated on November 3, 2023

Just when you thought the saga between Chris Rock, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith was over – and it should have ended with a literal mic drop during his Netflix special Selective Outrage – Jada is again stirring the pot, confessing that Chris Rock actually asked her out on a date sometime before the 94th Academy Awards.

But let’s give some quick context here. The issues between Chris Rock, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith go back years, with the most prominent stemming from Jada calling for multiple boycotts of the 88th Academy Awards: one over the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and another for Chris Rock to step down as host because Will Smith was “snubbed” for Concussion. Rock would go on to host because: a) Smith wasn’t even worthy of a nomination, and b) ain’t no Ozzfest second stager gonna tell him what to do.

As Jada Pinkett Smith told People, Chris Rock had other pursuits in mind sometime in or after 2016 (Rock got divorced that year) – even though we’ve learned that Jada and Will refuse to get divorced. “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. 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 rumors.’ He was appalled. And he profusely apologized and that was that.”

Chris Rock would apologize to Jada Pinkett Smith a handful of years later after her husband slapped the Oscar presenter after a pretty mediocre joke. “Chris came down to the end of the stage and tried to apologize to me. He said, ‘I didn’t mean you any harm.’ I said, ‘I can’t talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s—.’ I thought this was [about] the Oscar 2016 and … their stuff that they had before I even came into the picture in the late ‘80s. I’ve got to leave that to Will and Chris to talk about, but they got their stuff for sure.” The way it can be read, Chris Rock has gone out of his way numerous times to be respectful to Jada Pinkett Smith, even though it hardly seems she’s worthy of it…

What do you make of the situation between Chris Rock, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith? Do you think Jada has something worthwhile to say or is she drumming up publicity for her book?