Yahoo News Fresh Prince's Aunt Viv blasts show reunion and brands Carlton an 'a**wipe'
Fans of hit ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air were practically foaming at the mouth when a photo of the cast reuniting in Malibu emerged earlier this week.
But not everyone was happy to see the gang back together again, notably actress Janet Hubert who played Aunt Vivian Banks on the program from 1989 until 1993, when problems with the show’s star, Will Smith, reportedly led to her exit.
The 61-year-old, who was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid in season four, claimed that ‘there will never be a true reunion of the Fresh Prince,’ and appeared to still hold some major bad blood towards her former co-stars, particularly her former TV son Alfonso Ribeiro, who posted the reunion pic.
‘I know the media hoe Alphonso [sic] Ribeiro has posted his so-called reunion photo,’ Hubert wrote in a now-deleted post on Facebook.
‘Folks keep telling me about it. He was always the asswipe for Will. There will never be a true reunion of the Fresh Prince. I have no interest in seeing any of these people on that kind of level.
‘I am not offended in the least, by this photo… it was an event for Karen’s [Karyn Parsons, who played eldest daughter Hilary Banks] charity,’ she continued.
‘It does however prompt me to take some meetings in Hollywood to pitch my memoir Perfection is Not a Sitcom Mom, and tell of the behind-the-scenes story before I leave this earth’.
Hubert and Will Smith famously clashed during their time on the show. Smith even addressed their on-set friction in an Atlanta radio interview in 1993.
He said at the time: ‘I can say straight up that Janet Hubert wanted the show to be The Aunt Viv of Bel Air Show because I know she is going to dog me in the press.
‘She has basically gone from a quarter of a million dollars a year to nothing. She’s mad now but she’s been mad all along.
‘She said once, “I’ve been in the business for 10 years and this snotty-nosed punk comes along and gets a show.” No matter what, to her I’m just the Antichrist.
Hubert, appearing in February 2016 on The Real, stressed that she ‘was never difficult on that set’.
She added: ‘I think Will simply needed to win, and I think sometimes when you get caught up in a lie and [tell] those things [that] never happened.’
One other person notably absent from the reunion was James Avery – who played Uncle Phil – who died in 2014′.
There may never be a reunion – but at least we’ll always have the reruns…
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