Over a week later, Chris Rock’s Oscars opening monologue still has people talking. The comedian’s highly-anticipated response to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy garnered a slew of reaction on the Web, and now one of its subjects is offering a response of her own. X17 caught up with Jada Pinkett-Smith, who championed a boycott of the annual awards show. After ending up on the wrong end of one of Rock’s jokes, Smith seems to be taking it all in stride.
“It comes with the territory, sweetheart,” she said. “We gotta keep it moving. There’s a lot of stuff we got to handle, a lot of stuff in our world right now. We gotta keep it moving.”
Rock took a stab at Smith’s stance after she encouraged artists of color not to “beg” for a seat at the table. “Begging for acknowledgement, or even asking, diminishes dignity,” she said in a video she posted on Facebook. “And it diminishes power. And we are a dignified people, and we are powerful, and let’s not forget it.” For Rock on the other hand, Smith’s boycott didn’t make very much sense.
“Jada says she’s not coming, protesting, I’m like — doesn’t she have a TV show? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited,” he said during his monologue.
Meanwhile, Will Smith was approached about Rock’s commentary and chose to say nothing at all. Watch his wife give her two cents below: