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Will Smith And Original Aunt Viv Actress Reconcile In Fresh Prince Reunion

Will Smith And Original Aunt Viv Actress Reconcile In Fresh Prince Reunion

The pair have famously had their differences

Amelia Ward

Amelia Ward

The cast of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air have reunited in a new reunion special which dropped on HBO Max today (19 November), with Will Smith and Janet Hubert finally putting their differences aside and making up.

Hubert, who played Aunt Viv in the first three seasons of the iconic show, has famously had a feud with Smith - and other members of the cast - branding him an 'egomaniac' in the past.

But the pair have reunited on a HBO special, where they talked out their troubles, with Smith declaring: "You're still my Aunt Viv."

The issues with the two started when Hubert, who played Will's loving Aunt Vivian for the first three series of the show, was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid.

In the past, Hubert hasn't been shy about her anger towards the show, claiming that Smith was responsible for her departure. In the past, Smith has said that Hubert wanted it to be The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air show.

HBO

In the special though, Smith and Hubert sat down to settle the 27-year-long feud.

Telling his cast mates, he said: "As a family, we have our things that we talk about, and then we have our things that we don't talk about.

"We never really, together, publicly talk about Janet. And what happened. And, for me, it felt like I couldn't celebrate 30 years of Fresh Prince without finding a way to celebrate Janet."

He played a video showing their reunion.

The pair hugged, before Aunt Viv told Smith how 'tough' it had all been for her.

She said: "I just wanted to know one thing: Why?"

Hubert went on to say: "You guys went so far. I lost so much. How do we heal that?"

Smith asked her about the story, to which she responded: "You have no idea. It was insane."

She explained that she got pregnant during the third season, and saying at the time her home life was 'not good at all'.

Will Smith, Janet Hubert and James Avery.
Moviestore/Shutterstock

Confessing separately, Smith said: "During that time of her pregnancy, I wasn't sensitive, I wasn't perceptive, and now that I've had three kids I've learned some things that I did not know at the time and I would do things very differently.

"But I can see where I made the set very difficult for Janet."

And that wasn't all of her trouble.

She explained that when she left the show, she wasn't fired, but claimed she was offered a 'really bad deal'.

With her husband out of work and being the mother of a newborn baby, she turned it down and was recast.

She said: "I was hurt deeply. When I left the show, I had this new baby and no one. Family disowned me. Hollywood disowned me. My family said, 'You've ruined our name.'

"And I wasn't unprofessional on the set. I just stopped talking to everybody because I didn't know who to trust because I had been banished. And they said it was you who banished me. Because you were Will. It was hard."

NBC

Smith tried to explain that as a 21-year-old actor, he felt that everything 'was a threat', saying he was driven by fear.

He added: "I have children. I've been divorced and I have a second marriage, and I can see now the level of pain and the level of struggle that it was just for you to show up every day."

Hubert replied: "But you took all of that away from me - with your words. Words can kill. I lost everything. Reputation. Everything. And I understand you were able to move forward, but you know those words, calling a Black woman difficult in Hollywood, is the kiss of death.

"And it's hard enough being a dark-skinned Black woman in this business. But I felt that it was necessary for us to finally move forward. And I'm sorry that I have blasted you to pieces."

Smith thanked her for sharing with him and the pair welled up, hugging after all that time.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion is now available to stream on HBO Max in the US.

Featured Image Credit: HBO