Snopes gets taken to the WOODSHED for 'pathetic' attempt to defend Will Smith
In the wake of the now-infamous "slap heard around the world," a video clip of actor Will Smith making a bald joke during an appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show" in 1991 has resurfaced.
Even before winning the Academy Award for best actor, Smith had already made headlines by marching onstage to smack comedian Chris Rock across the face for making a joke about his wife's hair loss.
Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, suffers from alopecia, a condition defined by the Mayo Clinic as "hair loss (that) can affect just your scalp or your entire body." This includes, among others, androgenic alopecia (male-pattern baldness and female-pattern baldness), frontal fibrosing alopecia (a receding hairline), and alopecia areata, which is immune system-related and causes patchy hair loss.
Following Smith's unhinged reaction to Rock's joke at the Oscars, a video resurfaced on social media of Smith making a "bald joke" about Arsenio Hall’s bassist, John B. Williams, during a 1991 appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show."
That time in 1991 when Will Smith made fun of a bald man on the Arsenio Hall Show and said \u201cawe these are jokes man c\u2019mon\u201d.\n#WillAndChris #WillSmithAssault #ChrisRock #WillSmithpic.twitter.com/LMUyjwj0d8— ThePopPunkDad (@ThePopPunkDad) 1648506144
The so called "fact-checkers" on Snopes were quick to jump to Smith's defense with an article that seriously attempted to say Smith isn't a bald-joke hypocrite because Williams, though clearly bald, does not necessarily suffer from alopecia.
Never mind that the vast majority of Twitter posts on the topic said nothing about "alopecia"; Snopes dug up the "one viral version of this video" (Snopes' own words, not ours) that was captioned, "Now this is a video of Will Smith saying a joke about someone with alopecia" to make the case.
Did Will Smith once do the exact same thing \u2014 make a bald joke directed at a person with alopecia \u2014 that led him to hit Chris Rock at the Oscars?\n\n No, and here's how we know:https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/will-smith-arsenio-hall/\u00a0\u2026— snopes.com (@snopes.com) 1648629902
"While this clip is real, there’s no evidence that Smith’s joke was directed at someone with alopecia," wrote Snopes.
"While Smith did make a bald joke during this appearance, there’s no evidence that Williams, like Pinkett Smith, has alopecia. We looked over Williams’ bio on his website, profiles of the artist, and several interviews, and found no mention of Williams having alopecia. It appears that this claim was made up out of whole cloth in order to increase the video’s virality by making Smith’s actions appear especially hypocritical," the article added.
Many people on Twitter felt that Snopes may have entirely missed the point:
So he just had regular hair loss from a past illness?\nHunh.\nAnd not "alopecia" which is the medical term for hair loss?\nThat's... an interesting and useless claim of a difference.\n\nGood job fact hiders.\nYou've worked hard to hide another fact.— Bert Difig (@Bert Difig) 1648653284
Another case of it's true but we don't like the narrative so we'll say it's not true— MyOpinion (@MyOpinion) 1648650583
Q. Did Will Smith or did he not make fun of another person\u2019s lack of hair? \nA. He did. \n\nYour pathetic attempt to excuse Will Smith\u2019s unacceptable behavior is duly noted. Please dont whine because people don\u2019t take you seriously as a \u201cfact check\u201d site.— Reine (@Reine) 1648649978
Snopes you really are a bunch of dishonest hacks. Love how you add in the qualifier \u201cwith alopecia\u201d to say the Will Smith didn\u2019t make fun of someone\u2019s hair\u2026— RandomDragon (@RandomDragon) 1648654653
No one takes your so called journalism! Seriously.— Sloan section 31 (@Sloan section 31) 1648654578
Snopes is a CLOWN SHOW!pic.twitter.com/PH0wbwWPcy— Cindy (@Cindy) 1648650615
Snopes keeps posting this, but has missed that male pattern baldness called androgenic alopecia. Clearly not the same type of alopecia but still, yes Smith did make a joke at someone with alopecia.— LatCit (@LatCit) 1648630180
Pathetic @snopes; just pathetic.— Connie McLou \ud83c\udf40\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\u2618\ufe0f (@Connie McLou \ud83c\udf40\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\u2618\ufe0f) 1648656827
You're nothing more than a mouthpiece for the lefties anymore. You're lack of any research before you make an ass of yourselves is pathetic.— Erin (@Erin) 1648651840