Will Smith and Janet Hubert proved the love is still strong between them when Smith showed up to support his former "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" co-star as she presented her kids book, "JG and the BC Kids," to a group of kids at an Embrace Girls Foundation event.
Smith and Hubert, who played the original Aunt Viv on "Fresh Prince," share a sweet embrace at the event in a video both actors posted March 7 on Instagram.
"Thank you for coming, baby," Hubert gushes to the Oscar winner, adding, "You haven't changed a bit."
"This ain't nothing but just the finest nuts and berries," Smith jokes as he playfully fingers his beard and hair.
The video shows the kids cheering as the “Men In Black” star takes the stage to help Hubert read from her book, which ties in with an animated feature film of the same name.
Both the book and the movie depict street smart kids and book smart kids forging friendships, a theme familiar to fans of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."
In 2020, Smith and Hubert made headlines when they ended their decadeslong feud to come together for their show's 30th anniversary reunion special on HBO Max.
During the first three seasons of "Fresh Prince," Hubert played Aunt Vivian, the matriarch of the well-to-do Banks family of Bel-Air who take in their working-class nephew Will from Philadelphia.
She was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid in 1993.
Hubert had reportedly long blamed Smith for her departure from the show.
The pair cleared the air during a candid conversation during the show's reunion special.
“Something I would like to clarify is, during that third season, when I got pregnant, there were a lot of things going on in my life, and in Will’s life as well,” Hubert said during the special. “There was some friction because I was pregnant, home life was not good at all, I was no longer laughing, smiling, joking, because there were things going on that nobody knew about. The cast had no idea what was going on.”
Smith also opened up about the tension between the two, saying, "During that time of her pregnancy, I wasn’t sensitive, I wasn’t perceptive, and you know, 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."
Hubert said she was offered a "bad deal" in the show's third season and instead chose to leave the series.
“When I left the show, I had this new baby and no one,” Hubert told Smith. “My 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.”
“What you didn’t realize either is that I was going through a lot at home,” she added. “You didn’t know. You guys didn’t know — very abusive marriage.”
“I can see now, the level of pain and the level of struggle that it was for you just to show up every day,” Smith responded.
Hubert said she struggled with a reputation of being "difficult" after leaving the show, which was "the kiss of death" for her career.
"When I look back now, it’s obvious that you were having a hard time. And I felt like you hated me," Smith told her. "I could not do a 30-year celebration of this show and not celebrate you, celebrate your contribution to this show, celebrate your contribution to my life.”
“I have to say, after 27 years, being here today and having the conversation that Will and I had together, it’s healing,” Hubert said afterward.