Janet Hubert responds to critics of her video slamming Jada Pinkett-Smith's Oscar boycott
Actress Janet Hubert responds to critics who said that her condemnation of Jada Pinkett-Smith's Oscar boycott proposal was driven by a personal vendetta...
In an exclusive video interview with TheGrio Janet Hubert responded to critics who said that her condemnation of Jada Pinkett-Smith’s Oscar boycott proposal was driven by a personal vendetta.
Hubert, who once co-starred as Aunt Viv on the hit show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, says that she believes Smith’s Oscar boycott video was insincere.
“It just struck me as disingenuous,” Hubert said. “The lights were low. The hair was done. It was all so Sojourner Truth and philosophical. To me it dilutes the movement… it dilutes the cause. There’s so many things going on that I know people are struggling with, that the Oscar are just not that important. I know that nobody was going to say anything.”
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Hubert says although she doesn’t agree with Pinkett-Smith, her video response was not an attempt to diss her fellow actress.
“I’m not knocking Jada, but I was knocking the fact that she’s stepping out on her own,” Hubert said. “Where’s [Will]? What man puts his woman out there to take the bullet?”
Hubert’s video has been viewed millions of times on Facebook and YouTube. Some folks have criticized her for calling out the Smiths, while Hubert says she has received overwhelming support especially from the black community.
“A lot of people in the black community have supported me,” Hubert says. “This morning I stopped and got a cup of coffee in New York and a woman walks up to the counter and she went, ‘I so agree with you.'”
Ultimately Hubert says she wants people to stop putting celebrities on a pedestal and rather each individual think for themselves.
“I think what I did is I simply gave people a different perspective. Sometimes we are blinded by the word star. We place these people up on a pedestal and believe that they can do no wrong. I’m not saying that Jada did anything wrong, but I’m saying that there are much more important things that we have t0 worry about.”
Checkout theGrio’s 2013 interview with Janet Hubert below:Â
