Source: Variety / Getty / Will Smith / Jada Pinkett
A new report reveals that the Oscars slapping incident was extremely detrimental to Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s philanthropic endeavors and sheds light on how donation money was handled.
Variety exclusively reports that the Will And Jada Smith Family Foundation will shut down after donations began drying up following Will Smith slapping the taste out of Chris Rock’s mouth for not KEEPING HIS wife’s NAME OUT OF HIS MOUTH.
Per Variety:
According to tax records from the Will And Jada Smith Family Foundation reviewed by Variety (via ProPublica), the foundation’s revenue dropped from $1,760,000 in 2020 and $2,138,660 in 2021 to $365,870 in 2022. The year-over-year drop of 83% included the departure of contributors such as American Airlines, which donated $76,160 in 2021, and CAA, which contributed $100,000 in 2021.
The website also reports the charitable organization that focuses on matters the couple cares deeply about, like health and wellness, arts education, and sustainability, gave large sums of money to two organizations, Rebecoming and World Rebirth Foundation. that didn’t do a damn thing with the money they received.
The Will and Jada Smith Foundation gave $15,000 to Rebecoming in 2022, an organization “dedicated to understanding and unlocking the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness through clinical research into the mechanism-of-action behind trauma release.”
When Variety did more digging on Rebecoming, they learned the organization’s website had not been updated since 2020 and continued to file tax paperwork through 2022.
World Rebirth Foundation Inc. received $10,000 from the Smiths in 2022. Variety reports the organization’s website is not live, and the last update on the Facebook page happened in 2023 while adding the organization’s mission statement is full of typos.
Bruh.
The Foundation’s Troubling Spending
Variety also touches on the Will and Jada Smith Foundation’s 2022 expenditures, which included office equipment and computers plus an eyebrow-raising $3,304 in “bank overdrawn” fees.
As of 2023, there are no more paid employees at the foundation, which began cutting back on staff in 2021, signaling the Smiths to move away from the organization.
Despite the Smith’s philanthropic failures, Will Smith is still one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, making $25 million per project, which includes Bad Boys: Ride or Die and his upcoming Netflix project Fast and Loose.