"Fresh Prince" actress takes on Will Smith & Co. in new memoir

Image source: www.janethubert.com

It’s one of the great mysteries of modern television: Just what exactly happened to “Aunt Viv” between seasons 3 and 4 of Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

In August, actress Jan Hubert released Perfection is Not A Sitcom Mom (Palamino Productions Inc., $12.99)—a memoir detailing her departure from the popular 90’s comedy that launched the career of a young Will Smith. Described as “alternatively plaintive and scathing” by BV on Books, the short volume is Hubert’s attempt at setting the record straight after years of speculation and mistruths.

In an exclusive interview with Black Voice, Hubert said that a YouTube video in which former co-star Alfonso Ribeiro (“Carlton”) claimed that she was fired from the show because “she went nuts” was the impetus for her to start writing. She added, “I wrote it for clarity, to clear my name. I got tired of answering questions about why I left...In the book, I also talk about how words can kill. You don't take someone's life and just step on it, and you don't take my family's name and destroy it.”

Hubert claims that Ribeiro’s and Will Smith’s disparaging remarks “destroyed a 20-year-career with untruths.” (Will Smith later apologized in “Essence Magazine.”) Though time and distance have healed some wounds, she maintains that the hurt “still lingers.”

Here is an excerpt obtained by BV Buzz in which Hubert recounts the negotiations that led to her curtain call: My mind was going in a million places. OK, I thought, they will come back [with a salary offer]; this is how they do it. They always come back. I started into the kitchen where Rayna - my friend, housekeeper and nanny was. She was doing dishes as baby E was enjoying a swing. I knelt down, kissed his head, and waited for the next round of negotiations. They never came. The next time [my agent] Michael called he said, ‘They are going to recast your role.’ There was a beautiful stained glass window that I designed in the bedroom, and the windows were open, so my neighbors probably heard me scream. And that beautiful window probably has many cracks in it. Time of Death: approximately 3 pm. The real Vivian Banks was murdered.

Now living on the East Coast, Hubert has set her sights on yet another literary endeavor: a children’s book series (JG & the BC Kids) about “a little boy who solves a complicated mathematical equation that opens his imagination and out comes a teacher who takes him and his friends on an adventure.” She has also written a pilot for a dramedy, which she has been pitching to networks hopes to begin filming shortly.