“Let’s Dance” juror Motsi Mabuse (40) is known for speaking out loud on the subject of discrimination. And so it’s not surprising that the 40-year-old sees a deeper social problem in the slap scandal surrounding Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Oscars.

She made a clear statement: “To see Chris Rock making that joke and knowing that this is one of the most prestigious events around and he’s putting a black woman down instead of raising her in front of her peers, that’s the kind of abuse that that we have to talk about,” wrote Motsi Mabuse on Instagram on Monday.

Comedian Rock (57) made a joke at the Oscars about Will Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith (50), who has hair loss due to an illness. Movie star Will Smith (53) then went on stage and gave Rock a resounding slap in the face, later shouted from his seat in Rock’s direction: “Let my wife’s name out of your damn mouth!”

Motsi Mabuse was also indirectly outraged by Smith’s violent reaction (“It was disappointing, embarrassing, yes he protected his wife, we can list the reasons why it was okay, but personally I’m disappointed on so many levels”), but she tried to put the incident in a larger context.

Let’s Dance 2022: Motsi Mabuse with a clear statement on the Oscar scandal

“It’s never that easy to be a black woman learning to love yourself,” Mabuse explained. For a long time, black women were not considered beautiful. She knows what she’s talking about: “Because I grew up in South Africa, which told us that we were worthless”.

Mabuse emphasized that Jada Smith spoke loudly about her fight and that Chris Rock was still ignorant. “I am absolutely against all forms of abuse and last night’s Oscar was a perfect representation of mental, physical, emotional and verbal abuse.” It was a “shame”.

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