A moment she’ll never forget. Sheree Zampino was as shocked as anyone when her ex-husband Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, but she has hope for a reconciliation between the two men.
via: Page Six
“It was one of those moments where I froze,” the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star, 54, told Us Weekly Monday. “The first thing you do is you try to make sense of it in the [moment]. And when it doesn’t make sense in the moment … we didn’t even really have time. I didn’t even deal with it.”
Although Zampino said she is still struggling to “make sense of it,” she wants to see the two stars come together in the spirit of forgiveness, saying it would be a “powerful” moment.
“When Chris and Will can come together and heal in a public way and extend forgiveness to one another, do you know how many people that’s gonna help and set free? So, I see the opportunity in it,” she said.
Moments after the incident aired, Zampino reportedly “skedaddled” from the Academy Awards viewing party she had attended with fellow “Housewives.”
Smith, 53, recently made a public apology to Rock, 57, for the slap heard around the world in a YouTube video.
“I will say to you, Chris, I apologize to you. My behavior was unacceptable, and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk,” the Oscar winner said.
The “Pursuit of Happyness” actor also revealed in the five-minute video that the “Grown Ups” star is “not ready to talk,” so Zampino’s wish of the two coming together may not happen for a while.
Even after all of the contention following the instantly infamous smack, Zampino said her ex-husband is doing “amazing.”
“I think the reason why he’s so successful is because he’s done it with a lot of dignity, he’s done it with a lot of grace,” she told the magazine. “Will is always gonna be OK.”
Smith and Zampino were married from 1992 to 1995 and share a 29-year-old son, Trey. After their divorce, the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” alum married Jada Pinkett Smith in 1997 had two more children, Jaden, 24, and Willow, 21.
Zampino has appeared as a guest on “RHOBH” several times over the years but joined the show as a “friend of” Garcelle Beauvais for Season 12.
The Bravolebrity recently revealed that she once butted heads with Smith and Pinkett Smith, 50, over co-parenting Trey and adjusting to a blended family.
She said on David Yontef’s “Behind the Velvet Rope” podcast that “three different dynamics, three different personalities and [three] different belief systems” did not make things easy for her, especially because Trey was only 5 years old when her ex married the “Girls Trip” star.
Zampino did say, however, that Pinkett Smith always treated her son well.
“I’m grateful that we were kind of all on the same frequency and the same page to really want to do that, which is probably why we are called to one another in this space,” she shared.
