Former longtime NBA big man Charlie Villanueva has responded after Will Smith stormed the Oscars stage and smacked host Chris Rock across the face.
Smith, who won the Oscar for best actor for his performance as Richard Williams, the father of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams, took exception to a Rock joke about the short hair of Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has publicly discussed her struggle with alopecia, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss.
For Villanueva, a longtime alopecia sufferer turned activist for alopecia awareness, the stunning episode hit very close to home for him.
On Sunday night, the former Bucks, Mavericks and Pistons forward, who played collegiately for UConn, said he doesn't approve of violence, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, he sympathized with Pinkett Smith and her husband's reaction.
"Listen, I don't condone violence, and I understand comedians have no barriers to their jokes, but words are powerful weapons and they hurt people," Villanueva said. "We should always be kind to one another, regardless. And hey, some people get what they ask for."
In a separate tweet on Sunday night, he added "Let's seek to focus more on empowering each other more than anything else."
On Monday, the former 11-year NBA veteran, who was the seventh overall pick in the 2005 draft, expounded on his thinking in a video published on Twitter. He captioned his post "I stand with Will and Jada."
"To me, alopecia, for those who don't know, is an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss. Jada has publicly come out and said she's been dealing with alopecia, and struggling with it. For someone who's at the stage where they're still struggling with it, they're very vulnerable, and it's a very slippery slope. I've heard a lot worse things in my life, especially after I accepted it. For someone who is dealing with alopecia and hasn't accepted it -- and when people crack jokes, regardless of whether it's a comedian, that shit hurts. And at the end of the day, Will reacted because he saw his wife's pain.
"Mind you, we're not with Jada 24/7. We know she's been struggling with it, but we don't really know what's going on. ... And you have to be careful, on how you address people, and on how you want to crack jokes on people, because you don't know what they're going through.
"To me, Will's reaction is only human. He chuckled at first, and I'm pretty sure he looked over at his wife -- and you could see the discomfort, and you could see the pain. You have to react. So, he reacted. Do I condone violence? No. But, he's human, and he reacted that way. I'm not surprised. So, for someone who's been dealing with alopecia for 20-plus years, shit is real. And, for someone who hasn't accepted it, it's even realer.
"So, just be careful people. Be careful who you want to crack jokes on. You don't know the type of reaction you're going to get. Hopefully throughout this whole ordeal, I hope alopecia wins. What I mean by that is, I hope it created more awareness for alopecia, and people understand what alopecia is now."
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