Jada Pinkett Smith’s ex denies reports he was laughing at Chris Rock’s ‘entanglement’ jabs

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August Alsina — the singer who had an “entanglement” with Jada Pinkett Smith — is shooting down talk that he was in stitches watching Chris Rock’s recent Netflix comedy special.

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Earlier this week, the New York Post published a report saying that Alsina thought Rock’s jokes about the couple’s affair were “funny.”

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“August watched the Netflix special and he laughed,” a source told the Post. “He thought it was not only funny but truthful. That was the best part for him.”

“This is a lie,” a rep for Alsina told Entertainment Tonight. “Mr. Alsina has not seen Chris Rock’s special at all, as he’s been busy on tour.”

In the special, the comedian riffed on a number of topics, including woke and cancel culture, the Capitol Riots, abortion, the Kardashian clan, Beyonce, our incessant need for attention, Meghan Markle’s claim that she didn’t know about racism in the royal family, and Jada’s romance with Alsina which led to her husband Will Smith attacking Rock at last year’s Oscars.

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Telling the crowd that Smith’s slap left him hearing “Summertime ringing in my ears”, Rock blamed Pinkett Smith’s “entanglements” for the actor’s outburst.

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“His wife was f—ing her son’s friend. I normally would not talk about this s— … But for some reason, [they] put that s— on the Internet. We all been cheated on. Everybody in here’s been cheated on. None of us have ever been interviewed by the person that cheated on us on television. ‘Hey, I was sucking somebody’s d—. How did that make you feel?’” Rock said, referencing the couple’s decision to publicly address infidelity in their relationship on a Red Table Talk episode.

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In 2020, Jada confessed to an “entanglement” with the R&B singer in 2015 when her and Will were briefly separated.

“We were over. From there, as time went on, I got into a different kind of entanglement with August,” she said on Red Table Talk.

Smith, who appeared alongside his wife, said the break in their marriage was necessary so they could both “figure out how to be happy.”

In an interview with Vulture that same year, Alsina addressed the attention surrounding the use of the word “entanglement,” insisting he doesn’t “know why that word is such an issue.”

“I would agree (with Jada). If you look up the definition of ‘entanglement,’ it is a complex and difficult relationship. It was exactly that,” the 30-year-old explained.

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“But I definitely have to agree with it being an entanglement. It definitely was something complicated, a complicated dynamic.”

In a separate interview with Breakfast Club host Angela Yee, Alsina said he had “literally never been in love” before meeting Jada.

“I totally gave myself to that relationship,” he said [per Us Weekly]. “I devoted myself to it. I gave my full self to it.”

Since the special aired, Rock has been accused of being “obsessed” with Jada.

“That’s been going on for 30 years,” a source told PEOPLE. “Look where he chose to film his Netflix special. Her hometown [in Baltimore]. Obsessed.”

The insider continued, adding that Rock’s beef with the actress stemmed from her criticism over his hosting of the 2016 Academy Awards after she helped spearhead the #OscarsSoWhite campaign due to the lack of nominees of colour, including Will’s performance in Concussion.

“Back in 2016 she helped start a movement with the Academy Awards by questioning why there are so few Black members, and Chris took it to this?”

In his special, Rock addressed the jokes he made at Will and Jada’s expense at the 2017 Oscars.

“I did some jokes about her. Who gives a f—? That’s how it is. She starts it, I finish it,” Rock said. “That’s what the f— happened … She started this s—.”

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