'Aunt Viv' Janet Hubert calls out Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith over Oscars boycott

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. — (Image credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

It was a takedown worthy of Uncle Phil, but it came courtesy of Aunt Viv.

Janet Hubert — best known for playing the original Aunt Vivian on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from 1990 to 1993 — took to Facebook on Monday to voice her opinion on Jada Pinkett Smith saying she will not watch or attend the Academy Awards because of a lack of diversity among this year's nominees. Hubert believes the boycott is really because Pinkett Smith's husband and Hubert's former co-star, Will Smith, was not nominated for his role in Concussion.

"First of all, Miss Thing, does your man not have a mouth of his own with which to speak?" Hubert said in a video message. "Second thing is, girlfriend, there's a lot of s—t going on in the world that you all don't seem to recognize. People are dying, our boys are being shot left and right, people are hungry, people are trying to pay bills, and you're talking about some…actors and Oscars. It just ain't that deep." Hubert said that the Smiths are asking people to jeopardize their careers, and she finds it "ironic" that Pinkett Smith has made "millions and millions of dollars from the very people that you're talking about boycotting."

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Hubert said while on Fresh Prince, cast members asked Smith to join them in asking for a raise and he refused, and she also got in a dig against his performance in Concussion. "Maybe you didn't deserve a nomination," she said. "I frankly didn't think you deserved a Golden Globe nomination with that accent, but you got one. Just because the world doesn't go the way you wanted it to go doesn't mean you can go out and then start asking people to start singing 'We Shall Overcome' for you." Hubert then called the Smiths out for having a "huge production company" that only produces for "your friends, your family, and yourselves. You are a part of Hollywood, you are a part of the system that is unfair to other actors, so get real." Your thoughts, Carlton? Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.