The most jaw-dropping moment at the 2022 Oscars was not centered around a historic win, but instead, an in-poor-taste joke made at the expense of Jada Pinkett-Smith.
Tasked with presenting the award for Best Documentary at the March 27 event, comedian Chris Rock naturally took a few cracks at the audience before handing the award to Summer of Soul's Questlove, including a reference to Pinkett-Smith's shaved head, saying he couldn't wait to see her in the G.I. Jane sequel.
Though the audience laughed, the Girls Trip actress was not impressed, rolling her eyes as the camera panned over to her. Husband Will Smith's reaction was more overt, the eventual Best Actor winner climbed on stage from his front-row seat to slap the Spiral star before telling him to "keep my wife's name out your f—king mouth."
As the King Richard actor later said while accepting his trophy, "love will make you do crazy thing," and his wife's buzz is way more than just a style statement. So, it's time for us all to come to the table and learn more about Pinkett-Smith's years-long struggle with alopecia.
The actress first revealed her diagnosis—an autoimmune condition that can cause someone to lose their hair, eyebrows and eyelashes—in a May 2018 episode of her Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk.
Calling the experience "terrifying when it first started," Pinkett-Smith detailed, "I was in the shower one day and had just handfuls of hair in my hands and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, am I going bald?' It was one of those times in my life where I was literally shaking in fear...That's why I cut my hair, and why I continue to cut it."
Though Pinkett-Smith said she thought her hair was a "big part" of her, having alopecia caused her to take a step back and see the bigger picture.
"I really had to put it into a spiritual perspective, like the higher power takes so much from people," she explained in the 2018 episode. "People are out here with cancer. People have sick children. I watch the higher power take things every day. If the higher power wants to take your hair—that's it?...When I looked at it from that perspective, it really did settle me."
After years of rocking a close crop, Pinkett-Smith shaved her head completely last July after receiving inspiration from daughter Willow Smith.
Five months later, the Set It Off actress took to social media to show off a bald line that had grown in the middle of her head.
"Y'all know I've been struggling with alopecia and just all of a sudden one day, look at this line right here. Look at that," she said in a video posted to Instagram in December 2021. "It just showed up like that and this is going to be a little bit more difficult to hide, so I thought I'd just share it so y'all are not asking any questions."
She also said that she's going to start adding some bling to her new look. "You know, mama's going to put some rhinestones in there," Pinkett-Smith joked. "I'm going to make me a little crown. That's what mama's going to do."
Not that she needs the extra sparkle to shine bright.