Will Smith’s career hasn’t been easy and Nia Long is certainly proud of how he handled the pressure.
Long, 52, who previously starred alongside Smith, 54, in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as his girlfriend and fiancée Beulah “Lisa” Wilkes, praised her former co-star in an interview with Yahoo Friday.
“I will always love him. He’s had an incredible career and he’s carried a burden for many years to portray what perfection looks like,” said the You People actress. “Or what performance looks like.”
When they starred in the 1990s sitcom, Long said there wasn’t that much room for actors “to be human.” Since then, celebrity culture has changed. “I think he’s capable of being human now,” she added.
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Smith had a controversial year after beating Chris Rock onstage at the 2022 Oscars. After the incident, Smith resigned from the academy and later apologized for his actions to the public and to rock. The slap came after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has an autoimmune disease (alopecia areata) that causes hair loss.
Long did not address the incident directly during her interview, but she sympathized with the need to free herself from public pressure.
“We all have our moments in life when we need to reconcile things that we’re repressing. And I think — it’s hard growing up in this business and being the center of attention all day, every day,” she said.
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Nia Long appears on The Daily Show clarifying “Black Famous” remarks
Long did the rounds while promoting the Netflix movie You People, the movie Missing and the series The Best Man: The Final Chapters on Peacock. In an interview with Buzzfeed last month, she said films with a predominantly black cast are usually referred to as “black films” rather than by genre. She also said just referring to some stars as “Blackfamous” could “hold us back.”
“When I use the word ‘Black,’ I don’t use it to separate us from anyone — I use it to put an exclamation point after our greatness because I don’t think it’s always been celebrated and recognized.” , she said, adding that her projects are for “everyone” to enjoy.
Long appeared on The Daily Show on Wednesday with guest host Wanda Sykes, who asked the actress to clarify what she meant.
“By that I mean if we keep practicing this idea of separatism, we’ll keep dividing,” she said. “And I will always and forever hold my fist up because I understand the experience, but I also believe that the more we understand each other and the more we accept each other, this thing called art should be representative of all of us.”
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