Celebs Who Have Beef With Jada Pinkett Smith

Some loathe her, some love her, and some simply don’t understand her. We’re talking about Jada Pinkett Smith, who has remained a controversial figure in Hollywood in recent years. Countless media stories have speculated on why people are seemingly put-off by the actor, with The Washington Post even titling one 2023 article, “Why is everyone so mad at Jada Pinkett Smith?”

It might be due to the fact that the mother of two consistently speaks her mind. From revealing she’s been separated from her husband Will Smith for nearly a decade to claiming the late Tupac proposed to her — it seems there isn’t much off the red table for the “Matrix” star. But not everybody is buying it — or her 2023 memoir “Worthy,” which failed miserably in sales.

While honesty may be the best policy for some, many are criticizing her for her supposed candor. She even became the butt of the joke on “Saturday Night Live” during one taping where Ego Nwodim began her Weekend Update monologue impersonating Pinkett on her memoir press tour, saying, “Sorry if I seem a little tired, I’ve been on the ‘Today’ show 14 times in three days.” Or how about television personality Sherri Shepherd begging the question, “Is Jada Pinkett Smith Revealing Too Much?” It’s safe to say, not everybody is her biggest fan, from what she’s revealed to the public to how she moves in the industry. We’re breaking down all the celebs who have beef with Jada Pinkett Smith.

Actor Stacey Dash had a few choice words for Jada Pinkett Smith over her decision to boycott the Academy Awards in 2016. The actor made the move after the Academy’s acting categories were made up of only white individuals for the second year running. Smith took to Facebook to deliver the message to fans, explaining that the lack of representation for minorities influenced her decision not to attend.

“At the Oscars … people of color are always welcomed to give out awards … even entertain, but we are rarely recognized for our artistic accomplishments. Should people of color refrain from participating all together?” she questioned on her page. The “Girls Trip” star wished that year’s host, Chris Rock, well during the event, but maintained she would be skipping out on the star-studded affair. She wasn’t the only one, either, as Spike Lee also announced his absence from the show as well.

Dash was quick to comment on Smith’s decision, disagreeing with the move on “Fox & Friends.” During the segment, the former “Clueless” star called Smith’s plan to boycott “ludicrous” saying, “We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration.” She went on to suggest removing awards shows like the BET Awards, in which only African American artists are recognized, in an effort to promote integration. “If it were the other way around, we would be up in arms. It’s a double standard,” she explained.

Stacey Dash wasn’t the only one speaking out about Jada Pinkett Smith’s move to boycott the 2016 Oscars. Actor Alexis Arquette attacked Jada and her husband, Will Smith, putting their sexuality on blast and even speculating about what she believes to be the real reason for his first marriage ending with Sheree Zampino.

“When Jada comes out as Gay and her beard husband admits his first marriage ended when she walked in to him **** servicing his Sugar Daddy Benny Medina ..then I will listen to them,” she shared on Facebook (via the Daily Mail). Arquette clarified that she was referring to Zampino, commenting on her post, “‘She’ being his FIRST wife. Paid off, silent.” Medina is a high-profile Hollywood producer, with credits in films like “Hustlers,” “Atlas,” and Will’s claim to fame, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

Arquette went even further with her attack on the “I Am Legend” star, claiming he “threw a fit” when asked to participate in a kissing scene with actor Anthony Rapp for the 1993 film, “Six Degrees of Separation.” “He persuaded the director to shoot the back of his head in frame. Blocking the non existent lip lock entirely,” she alleged. Neither Jada nor Will have responded to the accusations.

Jada Pinkett Smith isn’t exactly the best of friends with her husband’s former co-stars. The actor who originated the role of Aunt Viv on “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” Janet Hubert was alleged to have a tumultuous relationship with Will Smith while on set, ultimately ending with her role being recast after three seasons. Hubert was among the individuals unappeased by Jada’s decision to skip the Academy Awards in 2016.

“First of all, Miss Thing, does your man not have a mouth of his own with which to speak?” Hubert wrote on Facebook (via CBS News), seemingly referring to the fact that Jada’s decision came after her husband wasn’t on the list of nominees for that year’s show. “And the second thing is, there’s a lot of s*** going on in the world that you don’t seem to recognize. People are dying, being shot left and right, people are hungry, people are struggling to pay bills — and you’re talking about actors and Oscars. It just ain’t that deep,” she quipped.

Hubert continued in her post, which she titled “The Smiths,” chastising Jada for giving other actors the idea to boycott the show as well. “For you to ask other actors and actresses to jeopardize their career and standing in this town, you know damn well you don’t do that,” Hubert advised.

This wasn’t the first time Hubert made a statement about the Smiths, as the actor has called out Will several times over the years for his treatment towards her. “[Will did] some heinous, horrible things to me — they were like bad kids, Will and Alfonso [Ribiero], especially Alfonso,” she admitted to Insider in 2013.

Jada Pinkett Smith isn’t keeping up with the Kardashians anymore, at least by the looks of her social media. The actor and her husband, Will Smith, had been close with the famous family for years after running in the same circles, but a certain “Red Table Talk” guest seemed to split matriarch Kris Jenner and Jada apart.

The issue sparked after the mother of two hosted Jordyn Woods — who was Kylie Jenner’s best friend at the time — on her talk show in 2019. Woods confessed on “Red Table Talk” that she and Khloé Kardashian’s on-again-off-again father of her child, Tristan Thompson, had kissed her at a party, leading to a major divide between the Kardashian clan and the social media influencer.

Upon the interview airing, fans quickly noted that Jada had unfollowed Kris, Khloé, and Kim on social media. Viewers speculated that she was taking Woods’ side in the debacle, especially since her late father had worked with Will on the “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” decades earlier. During the sit-down, she lent a helping hand to Woods, telling her, “I want you to know that you are supported … I got you and we got you.”

Despite unfollowing Kim, Khloé, and Kris, Jada continued to follow Kendall and Kylie. Her husband reportedly attempted to reach out to Khloe to smooth things over, with a source sharing with The Sun, “The Smith family know the Kardashians really well — they were all at Kim’s wedding to Kanye — and so Will picked up the phone to speak to Khloe.”

The “Red Table Talk” had its final run in 2023 — and no one seemed happier about it than Nick Cannon. The move came after all Facebook Watch shows were cancelled in April of that year. Jada Pinkett Smith’s hit show ended with five successful seasons of conversations with A-listers alongside her mother, Adrienne Norris, and her daughter, Willow Smith.

Cannon spoke up after the news broke, admitting he was pleased with the cancellation. “If there was no ‘Red Table Talk,’ then he wouldn’t have slapped the s*** out of Chris Rock,” he said on his show, “The Daily Cannon.” The comedian was referring to the infamous 94th Academy Awards presentation when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock over a joke he made about Jada’s hair loss (the actor has dealt with alopecia for years). Cannon called the show “that toxic table” saying, “too much honesty can get your a** slapped in the face.”

The television host called out Jada for bringing her marital issues with Will to the talk show in 2020, referencing an episode of “Red Table Talk” in which Jada admitted to being involved in an “entanglement” with artist August Alsina around 2016. Jada admitted she was unfaithful, confirming, “Yes, it was a relationship, absolutely. I was in a lot of pain, and I was very broken.” The couple was separated for seven years following the incident, but they have since reconciled.

Cannon wasn’t buying their candidness, however, admitting he no longer looks up to the stars as couple goals. “That was royalty, Will and Jada. Then they brought it to the table. I don’t want to know all this s*** about y’all,” he shared.

Jada Pinkett Smith and Chris Rock were once attached at the hip, until her 2016 Academy Awards boycott seemed to cause a rift between them. At the time, Rock was hosting the Oscars that Jada and Will Smith decided to bypass due to the lack of representation. He later joked about the couple in his opening monologue, quipping, “Jada’s mad her man Will was not nominated for ‘Concussion.'”

The “Bad Moms” actor told People in 2023 that she hadn’t spoken to Rock since Will backhanded him during the 2022 Oscars broadcast, but their differences began years earlier. “I think that there might be some misunderstanding between Chris and I as far as the 2016 Oscars,” she told the publication. “I think that he might’ve taken offense, which I meant no harm in offending.” The two eventually made up after Rock reached out in 2016, but hadn’t talked since he and Will’s onstage altercation.

The mother of two said that while Rock attempted to apologize right after the event, she didn’t feel it was the time to hash things out. “Chris came down to the end of the stage and tried to apologize to me. He said, I didn’t mean you any harm,'” she recalled to People. “I said, ‘I can’t talk about this now, Chris. This is some old s***.’ I thought this was [about] the Oscar 2016 and … their stuff that they had before I even came into the picture in the late ’80s.”

Jada revealed that Rock poking fun at her bald hairstyle wasn’t the only time she’s been offended by the comedian. “I’ll say that several times I’ve had my feelings hurt, for sure. I’ve had my feelings hurt a lot by Chris. But at the end of the day, too, being in the spotlight, it comes with the territory,” she noted.

50 Cent, who’s also prone to public beefs, called out Jada Pinkett Smith for her checkered past in 2023, even starting a campaign to rescue Will Smith from her. The controversy was sparked in October of that year after Jada admitted to selling drugs when she was a teen.

The actor revealed that she didn’t have the best influence in her life growing up with drug addict parents, and she had to fend for herself to get by. “I knew that anything that I needed was something I needed to provide for,” she articulated to People. “I decided to sell drugs.” Jada was dealing crack cocaine in Baltimore, a city hit hard by the crack epidemic in the 1980s.

But rapper 50 Cent wasn’t impressed by Jada’s will to survive by any means necessary, instead taking to X, formerly known as Twitter (via Complex), to call her out. “Alright enough is enough,” 50 stated alongside an article about her drug dealing past, adding, “Free Will Smith. WTF is going on.” His commentary also came amidst Jada revealing that she and Will had privately split back in 2016, despite publicly appearing together in the years that followed.

Stephen A. Smith was among several individuals that rallied behind Will Smith in the midst of Jada Pinkett Smith’s candid comments about their separation and tumultuous marital journey. The sports journalist spoke out about her decision to reveal their years-old separation, shaming her for how she moved in public.

On an episode of “The Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast, the host threw some serious shade at Jada for being so open about her extramarital affair. “Let me tell y’all what Will Smith does not deserve: He does not deserve what Jada Pinkett Smith has done to him,” he declared, referencing her previous relationship with artist August Alsina. “You can’t treat that man like that,” he continued, adding, “It’s none of our business! You screwing somebody that’s your business.”

The television personality criticized Jada for what he called an “emasculation” in the public eye. “He’s Will Smith! How much smaller do you want to make him?” he asserted, later adding, “It’s exceeded cruelty.”

Jada Pinkett Smith had some serious haters on TikTok, with one popular user going viral with a video asking for her silence. Ryan Davis posted a TikTok in 2023 begging Smith to “leave us alone,” which has garnered nearly 500,000 likes on the app. “Why do you keep giving us stuff we don’t ask for?” Davis questioned, referring to the star’s public comments about her marriage as well as her “Worthy” book tour. “I guess the book is called how to publicly embarrass your [husband],” he inferred.

Davis bashed Smith for how she treated Will during several media interviews, saying, “If she don’t know how to do nothing else — she knows how to publicly embarrass this man.” He also called her out for how she make light of their rocky journey, referring to the time Jada remarked on “Red Table Talk” that she and Will “ride together, we die together, bad marriage for life.” The remark was in reference to a quote from Will’s 2020 film, “Bad Boys for Life,” but it didn’t exactly land with Davis.

“Why would you say ‘bad marriage for life’ and then turn around and tell us that you was shocked when he called you his wife after he slapped Chris Rock,” Davis challenged. Jada previously voiced to Hoda Kotb in an NBC News prime-time special that she was “shocked” Will referred to her as his wife at the 2022 Oscars, saying, “We haven’t called each other husband and wife in a long time.”

Rick Ross wasn’t exactly on Jada Pinkett Smith’s side when her marriage woes went public. In fact, he collaborated with her ex-lover, August Alsina, on their 2020 track “Entanglements,” which seemed to be a direct response to what Smith previously dubbed her and Alsina’s relationship. “Girl, I know that we don’t call it a relationship (No, oh, oh) / But you’re still f***in’ with me,” Alsina sings in the track.

Ross spoke out about Smith in a Rolling Stone interview, expressing that he wasn’t impressed with her “Worthy” memoir or how she carried herself in the limelight. “I don’t think I agree with Jada Pinkett,” he began. “To me, she’s psychologically lost and needs some counseling. Jesus! What you going to tell us next?” He speculated that she might have been her own biggest enemy when it came to book sales, admitting, “I heard the book flopped because she already told us everything. No one cares.”

The rapper threw some serious shade at Smith for her less-than-notable movie career, acknowledging, “You were in the movie ‘Set It Off’ and that’s all we know you from. You got $15K for that role and that’s it. Calm down.” He also attacked her for starting an affair with her son Jaden’s close friend, whom he had introduced to his parents. “You f***ed your son’s best friend. You said your son introduced you to psychedelics. What’s next?!”

Ana Navarro had some choice words for Jada Pinkett Smith during a segment on “The View” in 2023. The co-host slammed the actor for what she called using “bombshells” to advertise her memoir, “Worthy.”

In a reposted TikTok of the taping, Navarro jokes, “I kind of feel like I know more about [Will and Jada’s] marriage than my own damn marriage.” She also speculated that Jada was engaging in a publicity stunt, remarking, “Every time she needs to increase the ratings of the ‘Red Table,’ every time she needs to sell books she drops these bombshells. I find it unseemly.”

Jada responded to Navarro’s comments on “The Breakfast Club,” advising the television personality to take “time to read the book.” While the mother of two admitted she respects a different point of view, she feels her haters have a bit of reading up to do — and not just in her book but in her husband’s 2021 memoir, “Will,” as well. “Anybody who’s saying that hasn’t really done their homework,” she critiqued, adding, “Will knows what it is, I know what it is, my kids know what it is and more importantly great Supreme does too.”