As suspected, Alfonso Ribeiro doesn’t like the ‘Carlton’ or strangers asking a Black man to dance
The actor says he gets requests for the signature move 'every day of my life if I go outside.'
Alfonso Ribeiro says he has no problem turning down requests to do the Carlton dance when out in public.
“I’m a Black guy, I’m just not dancing for you. It’s not gonna happen,” the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star, 50, told Jimmy Kimmel on his show Tuesday, PEOPLE reports.
Ribeiro says he gets requests for the signature move “every day of my life if I go outside.”
“What makes you think that you just gonna ask a random person to dance for you, and they’re gonna be like ‘Oh my God, I’ve been waiting for you to ask! Hold on a second, let me get into character,'” Ribeiro said. “It’s not — I don’t get it. It’s not gonna happen.”
Ribeiro hit up the late-night talk show to promote the 32nd season of America’s Funniest Home Videos, premiering Sunday at 7 p.m. on ABC. Ribeiro has hosted the show for the past seven seasons. When Kimmel suggested the veteran actor must “wanna kill people” when they request he bust out dance moves for them, Ribeiro replied, “You know, I won’t say kill, but I don’t have a love for it like they do, you know?”
He continued, “I typically get asked to do the dance pretty much every day of my life if I go outside. If I go anywhere, it’s like, you know, I just randomly hear people, ‘Do the dance!’ And you’re like, ‘I’m…I’m not dancing for you, I’m a Black guy, I’m just not dancing for you. It’s not gonna happen.”
Ribeiro played Will Smith’s preppy cousin Carlton Banks in the beloved sitcom which ran for six seasons on NBC, from 1990 to 1996. And while he and Smith remain good friends, Ribeiro said he has no intentions of reading his longtime pal’s self-titled memoir, Will.
“For many, many, many years, people speculated about them as a family. They are laying it out there in a way that is their truth,” Ribeiro said during a 2021 interview with Extra. “I don’t know if I’ll read the book because I know the people.”
As reported previously by theGrio, Ribeiro has always expressed gratitude for the success of Fresh Prince, he’s also been vocal about how being typecast as a character like Carlton has made him feel ostracized from the Black community.
“It still happens almost every day, unfortunately,” Ribeiro told the Atlanta Black Star about having his Blackness challenged. “I am in a mixed relationship. And I get things and looks and comments constantly.
And I find it very interesting because you see a lot of things on social media where people say things and people have positions and perspectives. And it’s not easy to make that choice, because you’re not at home in any home. I’m never going to be white and I’m never going to be fully supported in the Black house.”
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