“At the Oscars, people of colour are always welcomed to give out awards, even entertain, but we are rarely recognised for our artistic accomplishments,” Jada Pinkett Smith wrote on her Facebook page last week. “Should people of color refrain from participating all together?”
Will Smith broke his silence on his wife’s call to boycott this year’s Oscars when he sat down with ABC’s Robin Roberts yesterday in an interview for “Good Morning America” – confirming that he will not be attending the 88th Annual Academy Awards next month.
In his interview on GMA, Smith blames the Academy’s current membership for being one of the main caused of this issue.
“At this point, the Academy is 94% Caucasian and 77% male. It’s just difficult to get a diverse cultural sampling from that group. It’s a systematic bias that needs to be addressed across the industry, said the 47-year-old “Concussion” star.
Watch the full interview below:
https://youtu.be/BdHGPX8ukII
The Academy Awards will be broadcast live exclusively via HBO on 29th February at 9:30am, with a same night primetime encore at 8pm.
Sources: Variety, US Magazine, Dailymail, Yahoo News.
