Yes, i am thinking this could be the case as well, Granto
The Oscars
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Along_the_Wire Rock doesn’t strike me as a regular reader of MailOnline or Variety - I’d imagine that he had no idea she had alopecia
I have to disagree, and not just for the sake of being contrarian. Rock, Smith and Pinkett Smith had been friends for decades - Rock even appeared on Fresh Prince, and Pinkett Smith was on The Chris Rock Show.
Rock wouldn’t need to be a regular reader of MailOnline to keep tabs on them. They might have still spoken with each other occasionally in the recent past, and even not probably still have a number of mutual friends.
Rock even made another joke about Pinkett Smith when he hosted the Oscars in 2016, the year when Pinkett Smith was among those who boycotted it over “a lack of diversity among nominees”: Rock said: “Jada says she’s not coming. Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited!”
So even just from that it seems pretty clear he’s been keeping tabs on what she’s up to.
PS I like how you added “I didn’t til yesterday morning” to your comment - as if the fact that a complete nobody in England who doesn’t even care didn’t know PS had alopecia, is somehow in any way relevant to explaining why an old Hollywood friend in Chris Rock would have had no idea.
https://consequence.net/2022/03/will-smith-chris-rock-timeline/
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What we think we know about other peoples relationships and knowledge from afar is amazing.
We’ll never know but when you’re as busy as these guys are people can go a long time without talking or reading up about your friends in news.
Most successful people I know don’t read or watch most of the news until someone tells them to look at something genuinely concerning like the beginning of the pandemic or Ukraine. They’re too focussed and see it as filling their brain with things that don’t affect them and are out of control.
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NasserAlazzawi We’ll never know but when you’re as busy as these guys are people can go a long time without talking or reading up about your friends in news.
Maybe, but Rock and the Smiths have known each other for ages and likely still run in the same circles. Heck, wild idea I know! but Rock might have even done some light research on the subjects of his jokes as he was writing his script for presenting the Oscars. I’m sure Rock is enough of a professional that he wouldn’t have just written an Oscar presenting show quickly on the back of a fag packet.
And again, the fact that he made a personal joke about Jada already in 2016 shows he must have been keeping tabs on her somehow.
hugopal maybe.
If he didn’t know it could also be because it’s ‘only’ Alopecia.
If you run in the same circles but haven’t seen each other for ages, and it was something more sinister like Cancer, sure it would spread much more around those circles.
When people like this catch up it can be too brief to get into things like that - people usually stick to the positives and what’s happening (or in their case, occasionally business). The average person will talk about negatives a lot but in these circles and especially where people work together it’s much more generally avoided in favour of being agreeable, positive and building each other up, building good rapport, celebrating successes. It’s how they fuel themselves in a world that is criticising them from armchairs.
If someone turns up to an event like that otherwise looking healthy and laughing at jokes, and just appears to have changed their hair style then I could see how Chris could make a mistake.
We never know what people know, and assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups.
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NasserAlazzawi If someone turns up to an event like that otherwise looking healthy and laughing at jokes, and just appears to have changed their hair style then I could see how Chris could make a mistake.
I very much doubt Rock have just written that joke off the cuff in the evening - he’d have scripted it all beforehand.
hugopal maybe.
Or he had a script and went off it based on what was in his field of vision.
I’m surprised that some people believe it’s possible Rock made this joke out of ignorance of her condition.
That is OBVIOUSLY not a possibility!!!
Hello from your resident voice of reason, providing balanced perspectives to the armchair experts 
What is amazing is that an award show for acting talents is being scrutinised to see whether people acted or not in this “incident”.
There is no doubt, WWE is more believable in fact
Peak Guardian
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alistair summed up in one of the comments - “ The Guardian needs better commissioning editors.”
Hugo, have we reached peak BERK with you or is there plenty left in the tank?
Smallman1 Plenty left in the tank.
No one drains the life out of this place quite like Hugo, it’s almost a talent!
Entertained by the news outlets reporting on Chris Rock’s decline to file a police report. They went forward and completed their own “media” report and even provided backgrounds (stats of each “fighter”). This world we live in is boiling over.
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Could be just a coincidence, but Pfizer sponsored the Oscars (legit, wtf), and happen to have an anti-alopecia drug in the pipeline - potentially the first for the condition.
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/pfizer-s-ritlecitinib-hits-goal-alopecia-phase-3-setting-up-showdown-lilly
https://www.healio.com/news/dermatology/20220125/ritlecitinib-shows-promise-in-alopecia-areata-treatment
https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/pfizer-and-biontech-take-hollywood-they-sponsor-oscars
Quick work from the master that is Lee Hardcastle.
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This is just brilliant. Could it be a rare case of the Guardian being intentionally amusing, or was the irony lost on the author?:
“Others who have come forward with their opinions on the incident over the past 24 hours include Isla Fisher, who posted a photograph of her husband, Sacha Baron Cohen, alongside Rock, with a love heart, and OJ Simpson, who said he thought Smith was “wrong” but that he could “understand the sentiment”.”
Lol, that is quality!
LOL that’s excellent. Imagine thinking, you know who we could really use to chime in on all this, fucking OJ.
hugopal that will break certain corners of the internet for sure
Stay classy America!
Is Rock a Scientologist too?
13 days later
Weirdo and a simp.
4 months later
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Will Smith is someone I’ve been wondering about since he went super silent on socials after the slap.
He’s just emerged with this video. It wasn’t broadcast on news first - these were lifted from his own insta.
NasserAlazzawi He’s a wanker and every film he’s been in is shit.