Isobel Pankhurst
Last night's Academy Awards ceremony made headlines around the world for all the wrong reasons when actor Will Smith took to the stage to hit comedian Chris Rock.
Rock had made a joke about Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, in which he said "Jada, can't wait for GI Jane 2," in an apparent reference to her shaved head.
Jada suffers from hair loss due to alopecia, something she has been open about since 2018.
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Now the charity Alopecia UK have weighed in on the situation in a statement published to their website.
They said: "We wish to make it clear that we do not condone the actions of Will Smith and do not believe that violence is ever the answer for dealing with unwelcome remarks.
"But dealing with unwelcome remarks is unfortunately an all too real part of having alopecia. Baldness continues to be an easy target for obvious observational ‘humour’."
The post continues with: "Why should Will Smith have been provoked in such a way to respond with violence? Well, we can only assume that over the past couple of years since his wife Jada’s diagnosis with alopecia, he will have seen first-hand the emotional distress that can be caused when losing one’s hair.
"Not only can it be upsetting for the person directly impacted by hair loss, it can be distressing for those close around."
The charity added: "Is Will’s violent outburst the first we have heard about at Alopecia UK? No, unfortunately not. In the past, we have also heard from students being suspended from school, adults facing disciplinary proceedings at work and sports players receiving match bans for responding to bullying comments with physical violence."
"If we are not condoning physical violence in retaliation for hurtful comments, what are we saying should or could be done? We advocate for calling out the insensitivity. Perhaps Will Smith could have stormed the stage to address Chris Rock’s remark (only assuming Jada was comfortable with this happening). Instead of hitting Chris, it would have been brilliant if he had called out why the ‘joke’ was potentially damaging."
The statement finishes with: "What we’re saying is that nobody with alopecia should feel like they have to deal with uninvited attention, comments or jokes but unfortunately it still happens.
"We feel confident that Chris Rock would not wish his joke to mean that thousands of young girls with alopecia have ‘GI Jane’ added to the names that are thrown in their direction. But as we have seen, words have consequences and it is time for that to be acknowledged.
"We send our best wishes to Jada Pinkett-Smith and hope she is doing well following the events of last night."