EUR WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Janet 'Aunt Viv' Hubert speaks out about her new book on Will Smith (Pt. 1)

“There’s a machine and it was designed to make him a superstar. And that machine was designed to steamroll over anybody who got in the way. I was simply a body…” --Janet Hubert

     *WARNING: It is going to be hard, even painful, for many people to fathom that Will Smith - an actor who has achieved the greatest level of fame, admiration, and success imaginable - may have at one time in his evolution, been a complete a-hole.

     Now, nearly two decades since NBC’s ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ took the then 22-year-old rapper from his radio-friendly songs long enough to start his walk on the road to stardom, former “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” cast member, Janet Hubert-Whitten, aka "Vivian Banks" aka “The first Aunt Viv’” has broken her silence and authored the book "Perfection Is Not A Sitcom Mom."

     In an emotional exclusive interview with EUR’s Lee Bailey, Hubert (no longer Whitten) sounds more hurt than bitter as she paints a disturbing and unrecognizable picture of the superstar, and although she admits she doesn’t know him now, she speaks candidly about the man she knew then.

Scroll down for Bonus Audio Coverage of our interview with Janet Hubert

     Without so much as a stutter, Hubert, who at times seems to be near tears, uses the one-hour, eight minutes and fifteen seconds telephone interview to reveal vivid details of her claims against Smith; which include verbal and mental abuse on the set, hypocrisy, excessive egoism, blatant resentment, the insensitive spewing of ‘your mama’s so black’ jokes, and ultimately, public slander – which Hubert says kept her from getting projects green-lighted and has banned her from work in the field she used to love.

     “He had a lot of power. He had full power on that set! Maybe not the first season, but by the second, third season he was basically running it,” she states. The words escaping her mouth so fast—with no second-guessing herself--it’s as if she is in a time warp. “He knew what everybody was making because even on that V103 interview he said (mimics Smith using gangsta voice) ‘She made two hundred fifty thousand – a quarter million dollars a year. Now she ain’t makin’ nothin’!’”

     The interview Hubert refers to was one of the first, she claims, Smith gave following her removal from the show “…I dug out the old tape…I call it ... ‘Vicious V103’ in Atlanta. When it all went down he was in Atlanta, and he was with the DJ’s at V103 and he referred to me as a ‘Drive-by.’  When he had finished his session of lies and slander (gangsta voice) he said, ‘Well you know, I feel like this is like comic timing you know what I’m sayin’? It’s kind of like a drive-by; we should move on, you know what I’m sayin?”

Will Smith (The Fresh Prince) & Janet Hubert (Aunt Viv)

     With the show still in reruns, fans are constantly reminded of the abrupt departure of Janet Hubert’s “Aunt Viv” – and those who watched the show when it originally aired were arguably confused behind the networks’ decision to remain mute and just slip Daphne Maxwell-Reed into the role one day; Fine actor that she is, the difference between her "Aunt Viv" and Hubert’s was not a subtle one. But the decision to gloss over the cast change was, according to Hubert, Smith’s handy work: ‘We’re going to just act like nothing happened,’ she says, mimicking him. Now, with her new book due out in 2010, he’ll have to eat those words.

     “Here’s what happened…Back when the re-negotiations came up, the network (NBC) offered me 10 weeks of work and they said ‘you cannot work anywhere else,” Hubert tells Lee Bailey, adding that the show was set to film 27 episodes [5 more than a usual TV contract] – yet cut her out of 15 of them. “So I was…not to work anywhere else – except 2 guest starring roles.”

     As is the usual case with re-negotiations, there is a back and forth dance between the network and the talent. Hubert made it known to NBC that she would be unable to make a living with the offer they placed on the table, so she declined, expecting them to return with something better. You know? NEGOTIATE.

     They never came back.

     When her agent called casting he learned that her role was being recast. “I couldn’t believe Will would do this to me; but [then again] I could,” Hubert says, adding that no one would disagree with Smith as he was notorious for acting like it was OK to do so while in front of others, but would later ‘cut you’ for such an action. She mentioned one day on the set when Smith screamed, ‘I am God!’ and she responded, “No you’re not!”

     “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.’

     He didn’t understand how unbelievably disrespectful that was to women like me. [Gangsta voice demonstrates Will telling the joke] “Yo mama’s so black when she looks at her shoes she thinks she’s looking in the mirror. Ha ha!”

     Hubert said that when she would stop Smith he would arrogantly retort, “Nobody stops me!”

     As if that wasn’t jaw-dropping enough, Hubert said a call came from Deborah Langford of Quincy Jones’ office. Jones was a producer of the show. According to Hubert, Langford said, ‘We want you to go in front of the cameras and we want you to tell the world that this was your idea; that you’ve decided to move on.’ Hubert’s response?

     “Kiss my ass! ... I said ‘what in the world am I going to get from that. I’m not Dawnn Lewis. I’m not a slave on an auction block who stands there and she’s got nothin’ and say (using a high-pitched female voice), ‘I’ve decided to move on because it would be good for my career.” 

     Lewis was dropped from the hit ABC comedy ‘Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper in 1993 when the producers decided to change the direction of the show. She took the action in stride and in an interview with JET magazine that same year, said she had no bitterness about the decision and was going on to pursue other projects she had missed out on by doing a weekly television show. Today Lewis, a great talent with powerful vocals, continues to delight audiences in live productions all over the world.

     Hubert says that she believes it was Langford who went back to Will and started, what she refers to as, ‘the firestorm.’ And it is the self-reflection of what she calls ‘her sitcom mom death’ as well as the reality that [working] Black actresses in Hollywood have disappeared, that motivated her to write her book.

     Already a professional in the business for more than a decade before the Fresh Prince of Bel Air came her way in 1990 Hubert had won a scholarship to the famed Julliard School in NYC, but ended up attending for only a year. She had appeared in daytime television and worked extensively in theatre; at one time as an understudy to one of the lead characters in the musical ‘Cats’ and was an Alvin Ailey dancer. It has been rumored that she was jealous of Smith for landing such a sweet deal without any previous acting experience.

     Yet Hubert says in the first season, before she even knew who Will Smith was, she tried to get him to join her in uniting the cast so that they could ask for more money. She said she asked him what role he was going to play and he said, ‘I’m Will’.

     “I said ‘Oh!’ I didn’t even know who the brother was. I’m 30-something years old [at the time]. I’m not a rap fan at all, not in the least. I didn’t know ‘Summertime’ or his name or whatever his hits were. I’m not easily impressed. You have to show me that you are an honorable person. [I] come from the theatre; [I’ve] gone to the school of hard knocks. Rappers don’t impress me. Their ideology…what they’ve done to our children. I’m really not impressed,” she concludes.

      Listen to Janet Hubert describe one fierce battle she had with the ‘Fresh Prince’ writers and star, Will Smith. Journalist DeBorah B. Pryor serves as narrator:

EUR Bonus Audio Coverage

     Later this week in part two of Janet Hubert’s exclusive interview with EUR, the actor reveals how she had to leave the set after filming her scenes because her presence made Will Smith uncomfortable. She speaks of the lack of support from fellow cast members and the Black media; the legal battle that ensued between her and Smith; and the NBC lawyers who treated the case like it was a joke.

     Can you say “Off the CHAIN?!" Stay tuned ...

DeBorah B. Pryor is a Los Angeles-based writer with more than 400 published articles to her credit. Her seminars teach “everyday people” how to become better communicators. Her CD: “Public Speaking for the Private Person” has just been released. To learn more visit her website at www.dpryorpresents.com

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