If there is going to be a ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ reunion, do not count on Janet Hubert being in attendance. Hubert was the original Vivian Banks on the hit sitcom.
Earlier last week, some of the cast members from the hit sitcom gathered at a charity event, leading fans to believe that they might be treated to an on-air reunion at some point. Will Smoith posted a photo of the charity event on Facebook, saying the following, “Got the Holiday season started right with a ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ reunion…there’s nothin’ like spending Holidays with fam!”
Hubert played Will’s aunt Vivian on the show but she was not at the event. Her absence was not because of a schedule conflict either.
“There will never be a reunion … as I will never do anything with an as*hole like Will Smith,” she told TMZ. “He is still an egomaniac and has not grown up. This constant reunion thing will never ever happen in my lifetime unless there is an apology, which he doesn’t know the word.”
Daphne Reid replaced Hubert on the show back in 1993 when her contract came to an end and she could not reach a new deal with NBC. Hubert wrote in her memoir, released in 2010, that she had only be scheduled to work for 10 weeks during the following season’s production and have been restricted by her contract from making other appearances on TV. She also said that she could not make a living under those contract terms.
Smith then blasted Hubert for her attitude during the fallout back in 1993, which was highly publicized:.
“I can say straight up that Janet Hubert wanted the show to be ‘The Aunt Viv of Bel Air Show’ because I know she is going to dog me in the press,” he said on an Atlanta radio station, according to the Huffington Post. “She has basically gone from a quarter of a million dollars a year to nothing. She’s mad now but she’s been mad all along. She said once, I’ve been in the business for 10 years and this snotty-nosed punk comes along and gets a show.’ No matter what, to her I’m just the AntiChrist.”
Hubert then told BVonBooks at the time, which is now part of Huffington Post’s Black Voices, “My departure was planned for a long time… There will never be a reunion of the ‘Fresh Prince.’ Will Smith and Alfonso [Ribiero, who played Carlton Banks] destroyed a 20-year-career with untruths. I got slammed. Will apologized later in an ‘Essence Magazine’ article, but it still lingers. It’s still there.”
Hubert conducted an interview with BlackAmerica Web last year, saying that Smith had been abusive, arrogant, and made racial jokes to the audience.
“I was a dark-skinned, African-American mother, and Will used to tell the you’re-so-black jokes to the audience before the show, and at one point, I came out and stopped him, and the audience went ‘Woooo,'” she recalled. “He didn’t understand how unbelievably disrespectful that was to women like me… ‘Yo mama’s so black, when she looks at her shoes, she thinks she’s looking in the mirror. Ha, ha!'”