Will Smith, 56, shared his thoughts yet again about his past animosity with former “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” co-star Janet Hubert, 68.
In a new episode of Vice’s “Black Comedy in America” series, Smith reflected on his decades-long feud with the original actress who played Vivian Banks on the 1990s-era sitcom.
“I made a horrible error and misjudged her value, power, and beauty in the show,” Smith said, per People. “I horribly underestimated what she was for me at that point in my life.”
Smith starred as a fictionalized version of himself on “Fresh Prince” for all six seasons of the NBC program. Hubert played the Banks family matriarch for only three seasons from 1990 to 1993, before Daphne Maxwell Reid took on the role of Aunt Viv in season 4 when Hubert left the show in a contract dispute.
That unexpected replacement shocked television viewers and blew wide open a rift between Smith and Hubert, one that saw Hubert launch an unsuccessful lawsuit against Smith and NBC in 1993.
Despite the blatant bitterness between the two entertainers, Smith and Hubert eventually managed to settle their differences after years of public hostility.
Commenters on The Jasmine Brand’s Instagram page responded to Smith’s latest positive comments regarding his former nemesis.
“Being Mary Jane” actress Raven Goodwin commented, “Janet is the realest I’ve ever worked with! A mentor. A friend. A REAL TALENTED cowgirl. DIVA clock it!”
“I’m so happy they made up! Man, those last three seasons were not the same without her as the mom,” wrote someone else.
One social media critic focused on Smith allegedly hurting Hubert’s career by posting, “He blackballed her in Hollywood. Stopped her from working.”
Two others suggested, “Cast her in something. You stopped her bag over 25 years. Start putting her on productions” and “Restore the money she lost by not being employed due to you saying she was “difficult.”
In contrast, a commenter aimed at Hubert, writing, “Nah. Nobody ruins your career for 30 years. All she did was trash him every chance that she got. No one wants to hire that. She was unstable. She was on the show for ONE season. That does not a career make. She admitted that she had things going on in her personal life (a no good husband) that impacted her life and career.
Smith and Hubert’s personal history included several back-and-forth jabs in the press, as well as in Hubert’s book, “Perfection Is Not a Sitcom Mom.” Their falling-out started playing out as far back as the year Hubert quit the sitcom.
“I can say straight up that Janet Hubert wanted the show to be ‘The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air Show’ because I know she is going to dog me in the press,” Smith stated in 1993, according to The Sun.
In addition, the Grammy Award-winning rapper suggested Hubert was upset about losing her $250,000 salary. Smith also claimed his ex-cast member referred to him as a “snotty-nosed punk.”
Alfonso Ribeiro, Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Joseph Marcell, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and the late James Avery rounded out the regular cast for “The Fresh Prince.”
In 2011, Smith, Parsons, Ali, Ribeiro, and Avery reunited for a charity luncheon. Hubert reacted to the get-together by addressing her longstanding tension with the show’s lead actor.
“There will never be a reunion… I will never do anything with an a–hole like Will Smith,” Hubert told TMZ at the time. “He is still an egomaniac and has not grown up.”
The Chicago native added, “This constant reunion thing will never ever happen in my lifetime unless there is an apology, which he doesn’t know the word.”
According to Newsweek, Hubert also accused Smith of making colorist remarks on the “Fresh Prince” set during a 2010 interview with BlackAmericaWeb.
“I was a dark-skinned, African-American mother, and Will used to tell the you’re-so-black jokes to the audience before the show, and at one point, I came out and stopped him,” the former Juilliard School student alleged.
Hubert added, “He didn’t understand how unbelievably disrespectful that was to women like me.” Reid, a light-skinned Black woman, replacing Hubert as Aunt Viv sparked a conversation about colorism on television.
During a 2016 appearance on “The Real” talk show, Hubert insisted she was “so professional” during her time on “Fresh Prince” and claimed Smith lied about her being “difficult.”
Smith and Hubert reconciled in 2020 while filming “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” reunion special on HBO Max. The two longtime adversaries sat down together for the first time since Hubert’s ‘Fresh Prince’ departure in 1993.
“We text each other back and forth all the time,” Hubert explained to People, a year after the HBO Max special premiered. “As a matter of fact, we have a very good relationship.”
She continued, “I meant it with all my heart when I hugged him, because I saw that little boy, that little 21-year-old boy. Had we had an opportunity to talk back then, I think this would have never happened.”
