Alfonso Ribeiro credited his Fresh Prince of Bel-Air costar Will Smith with helping him create “incredible magic” on the sitcom.
“Will is my brother for life,” Ribeiro, 53, said of Smith, 56, on the Thursday, March 14, edition of The Jennifer Hudson Show.
The Fresh Prince alum reflected on his long personal and professional relationship with Smith, after his costar shouted him out on VICE’s Black Comedy in America in December 2024. In the documentary, Smith said Ribeiro “transformed” his life through their “creative relationship” on the classic sitcom.
On Thursday, Ribeiro told host Jennifer Hudson that “it was wonderful” to hear Smith’s praise since “their friendship and bond has withstood the time of four or five decades.”
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“He’s absolutely the best,” Ribeiro said. “It felt great. Part of it’s true, right? I believe that for writers to deliver the best work that they can deliver, they need to see their work at 100 percent to know whether it worked or didn’t work. I would always give 100 percent in all rehearsals because the writer would [realize], ‘Oh yeah, that joke didn’t work.’”
Ribeiro admitted that “certain other actors” on the Fresh Prince set “may not give 100 percent,” which caused problems when it came time to actually film an episode.
“That joke that didn’t work on Tuesday is still there on Friday but because you never showed them it didn’t work, [the writers] kept it in the script and it bombed flat on the night but they didn’t have enough time to rewrite it,” he recalled.
“I believe that part of what I received on Fresh Prince is because of the hard work I would put in, going 100 percent in all rehearsals. [That] allowed writers to write better lines for me.”
Ribeiro suggested his work ethic also allowed for him and Smith to “create incredible magic” on Fresh Prince that “can’t be repeated.”
“It’s wonderful to hear Will give me some of my flowers. Obviously, I give him flowers all the time,” he added. “He is just so incredible. He’s the most talented guy I know and the most dedicated guy I know. It’s mutual love.”
During Smith’s interview on Black Comedy in America, he said he realized Ribeiro was right for the role of Carlton Banks from his costar’s very first Fresh Prince audition.
“Nobody commits as hard as Alf,” Smith insisted. “We call it ‘The Comedic Limb.’ And you know you’re going to try this joke and you’re going to go out there with it. You’re going to risk it all! One of his big things, why he would commit so hard with the lines, he says, ‘You commit so the writers can know it doesn’t work.’”
Ribeiro started his career as a child actor on the 1982 sitcom Silver Spoons before landing his career-defining role as Carlton on The Fresh Prince in 1990. The Fresh Prince originally ran for six seasons and has since been rebooted by Smith as a drama retitled simply Bel-Air, which was renewed for a fourth and final season in December 2024.
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Ribeiro is busier than ever these days as the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos and cohost of Dancing with the Stars along with Julianne Hough. In August 2024, Ribeiro told Us Weekly exclusively that he’d grown extremely close with Hough since they were paired together as DWTS cohosts.
“The both of us together — especially over the last year — we’ve gotten to be really close friends, and we enjoy working with each other,” he told Us.
