UPDATE: A Westbrook spokesperson provided corrections to the report below.
We reported earlier that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s media company, Westbrook, has reportedly struggled to land steaming deals and prominent financial backers following the infamous Oscars slap in 2022.
Per Semafor, “Two sources with knowledge of the company’s recent financial situation told Semafor that since the incident in March 2022, Westbrook has struggled to land major deals with the streamers and other entertainment giants, forcing it to make steep cuts,” the outlet writes.
The rep tells EUR: Westbrook has active deals with Columbia/Sony (Bad Boys 4), Amazon (Night of the Living Dead, The Understudy, Clean Air), Netflix (Fast & Loose, Onyeka & the Academy of the Sun, Cobra Kai), Universal (Regulators), Peacock (Bel Air, Queen of Flow), Paramount (Brilliance), and Disney+ (Pole to Pole). Candle Media has maintained the same level of involvement in Westbrook since their investment in the company in December 2021.”
Westbrook’s revenue fell to $100 million last year, forcing the company to lay off half of their employees, according to Semafor. Correction: “25% of staff were laid off last year, not half. Layoffs were due to the WGA and SAG strikes,” per the Westbrook rep.
Several of the company’s existing partners allegedly decided not to renew their contracts with Westbrook. Additionally, the Smiths are looking for a new home for Jada’s Emmy-winning Red Table Talk series after Meta dropped it from the Facebook Watch lineup.
After the Oscar slap, Westbrook has been forced to scale back its large ambitions, Semafor reports.
Here’s more from Semafor:
One person familiar with the talks said the most serious interest came from a relatively obscure streaming platform called Fubo TV, but the property remains shelved. A Westbrook spokesperson told Semafor that Westbrook is having active conversations with several distributors for the show and has 2 current offers.
The outlet writes, “… the Smiths and Westbrook’s CEO and co-founder, Kosaku Yada, initially dismissed colleagues’ concerns that Smith’s attack on Rock would affect their business. Yada, two people familiar with the conversations said, insisted the star’s image would bounce back quickly. And as business began to tail off, Yada was slow to seek additional funding for the business, agreeing with other company leaders who felt that they shouldn’t negotiate for new investment from a position of weakness.”
Meanwhile, we reported previously that Jada initially thought Will’s Oscar slap was a skit; now she’s calling it a “holy” moment.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Jada said Will slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars “saved my marriage.”
“That moment of the s-it hitting the fan is when you see where you really are,” she shared, Just Jared reports. “After all those years trying to figure out if I would leave Will’s side, it took that slap for me to see I will never leave him. Who knows where our relationship would be if that hadn’t happened?”
The actress added, “I call it the ‘holy slap’ now because so many positive things came after it,” she explained.
“We’ve been together 30 years so, even if someone new came along, neither of us is going anywhere,” she said. “We are a family that needs to look out for one another and always will be. Sometimes it takes a crisis for you to see that.”
READ MORE: Jada Pinkett Smith Says Will Smith’s ‘Holy Slap’ at Oscars ‘Saved My Marriage’
