Everyone seems to be talking about the #OscarsSoWhite backlash, but one actress is speaking out about the controversy for a different reason.
Janet Hubert, who was the original actress to portray Aunt Viv on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" alongside Will Smith, took to YouTube on Monday to aim a message at Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Pinkett Smith had publicly announced that she would boycott this year's Academy Awards ceremony in protest of the lack of nominations for any people of color, which happened for the second year in a row. (A situation that caused the Academy to release a rare statement commenting on the controversy.)
But Hubert found hypocrisy in Pinkett Smith's comments, and said so in her video, in which she chastised Pinkett Smith for being her husband's mouthpiece, and accused the actress of boycotting the ceremony simply because Smith didn't receive a nomination for his role in the NFL drama, "Concussion."
"I find it ironic that somebody who has made their living, and has made millions and millions of dollars from the very people that you're talking about, [is] boycotting just because you didn't get a nomination, just because you didn't win," Hubert said. "That is not the way life works, baby."
Hubert also found fault in Pinkett Smith and others (including Spike Lee, who is also boycotting the ceremony) making the Oscars more important than they are, when the African-American community is facing more serious problems. And the actress said that Pinkett Smith's urging of others to boycott the ceremony, when that's something that could hurt the careers of actors who are less famous than Smith and Pinkett Smith, was an audacious request.
"You ain't Barack and Michelle Obama," Hubert said, addressing the couple. "And y'all need to get over yourselves. You have a huge production company that you only produce your friends, your family, and yourself. So you are a part of Hollywood, you are part of the system that is unfair to other actors. So get real."
In addition to airing her Oscars-related grievances, Hubert also called out Smith over their well-publicized feud, which led to Hubert being fired and replaced on "Fresh Prince" in 1993. Hubert claims that she asked Smith to band together with the rest of the "Fresh Prince" cast to renegotiate their salaries, and the actor brushed her off. Now, she says, karma is catching up to him.
"It's not about being bitter, it's about being right," Hubert said toward the end of her video. "You know some of us have got mortgages to pay, we got bills to pay, we have bigger s--t to worry about than the Oscars."
Check out the entire video message above.
[h/t The Hollywood Reporter]
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