Bassist John B. Williams vividly recalls the moment more than 30 years ago when Will Smith drew his attention to him during an episode of The Arsenio Hall Show and made a joke about his baldness.
“I didn’t take it seriously. He was a comedian. He was the fresh prince of Bel-Air. He was a rapper. I thought it was a joke. I laughed at it,” Williams, 81, told Rolling Stone in his first interview since a clip of the 1991 exchange went viral. “It was a show. It was cool. It didn’t bother me at all.”
He then said what happened Sunday night was different, and he could “sympathize” with Smith.
Williams, who played in Arsenio Hall’s house band The Posse, was reminded of the 1991 exchange when his grandson showed him the resurfaced video on Monday. The clip began exploding after Smith stormed the Oscars stage on Sunday night and slapped Chris Rock in the face for the comedian comparing Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith to GI Jane, a movie character with a buzzcut played by Demi Moore.
Pinkett Smith has been candid about her battle with alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss and disproportionately affects black women. It’s not clear if Rock knew this. “Jada, I love you. GI Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,” Rock said from the stage.
In his joke more than three decades ago, Smith aimed at Williams’ bald head. “The bassist? He has a rule. He has to grow his head every morning. That’s a rule! He’s playing by the rules, man. He’s playing by the rules,” Smith said Clip dug up and posted to Twitter by a user with handle @Peter_OKH
“He has to grow his head every morning.” This is a video of Will Smith telling a joke about someone with alopecia.
One reason I love the internet, it never forgets. pic.twitter.com/4OGlgSrcjA
— Three Crosses (@Peter_OKH) March 28, 2022
As Smith told the joke, the camera cut to Williams, who smiled, laughed, and nodded in amusement. When some members of the audience seemed to groan, Smith replied, “Oh, these are jokes. Come on!”
Williams says the two jokes — one made by Smith and one that greatly offended Smith — are clearly similar, but also differ in two important ways.
First, Williams doesn’t have alopecia, he told Rolling Stone. He says his hair was thinning, possibly due to a childhood case of measles and the treatment he received, so he decided to shave it all off one day and has never looked back.
Second, Smith’s inability to take the joke jokingly was because his wife was the target, not himself, Williams said.
“Chris Rock is a comedian. I like Chris Rock. When Chris first made the comment, Will laughed. It wasn’t until it became clear that Jada wasn’t finding it funny that Will went to her defense. Love makes you do all kinds of things. This is his wife he loves. He only reacted out of indignation. I’ve sometimes reacted out of outrage,” Williams said.
“Of course there is more than one thing to do at this point. I wish he had put his words first, not second. Maybe they could have worked it out. Unfortunately it didn’t happen that way. It’s unfortunate how it happened,” Williams said.
He’s glad Denzel Washington and Tyler were able to pull Perry Smith aside during the show to “talk to him and calm him down,” he said. Williams also doesn’t think the academy should ask Smith to return the best actor award he received on Sunday for his role in King Richard.
“They’re both decent young men,” Williams said of Smith and Rock. “I like them both. I don’t want anything bad to happen to either of them. They have to work that out on their own. I’d like to see them get over it and maybe go out together. I think there are regrets on both sides.”