“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Karyn Parsons has transitioned from acting to become a #1 bestselling children’s book author.
But she often gets reminders of her iconic role as Hilary Banks in a classic Black sitcom so unforgettable people still sing the theme song decades after its 1996 finale.
While Will Smith was the face of the show, every character in the Banks family had a distinctive role. James Avery played Phillip Banks, the stern patriarch and lawyer. He married the sophisticated Vivian Banks, the aunt of Will Smith’s Philadelphia-native character, played by Janet Hubert.
Will moved in with his aunt and uncle, who had three children: Carlton, their preppy son; Ashley, their sweet young daughter; and Hilary, their spoiled, ditzy, and shallow older daughter.
Parsons once said audiences didn’t like her at the start of the show. Yet somehow, she continued as a staple character for all six seasons and now has a spinoff.
However, in a Nov. 2 interview on the “Tamron Hall” show, Parsons explained that wasn’t always the case.
She told the Daytime Emmy Award-winning journalist that producers nearly cut Hilary Banks from the series before filming the pilot.
“I only found that out a couple years ago,” she told Hall.
Parsons said late NBC president Brandon Tartikoff introduced the idea of taking Hilary out of the series during the audition process.
She stated she was told that Tartikoff said, “‘I think we should get rid of the sister character.’ He’s like, ‘The older sister.’”
Parsons told Hall, “I don’t know if he thought she was redundant or what he thought.”
Hall’s audience was hearing a retelling of the story.
During her 2025 guest appearance on the podcast “All Bets Are Off with Robby Vegas,” Parsons said Tartikoff was speaking to the show’s creators, Susan and Andy Borowitz, at the final network audition when he proposed removing the Hilary character. The showrunners pushed back, telling the network executive to watch Parsons’ interpretation of Hilary first.
“They were like, ‘No, no, no. Just wait till this girl comes in.’ And they just told me that recently,” she said. “I guess came in with a different spin on the character.”
“And I came in and did my whole weird affectation that I guess nobody else was doing,” she explained.
Parsons added, “It was good for me. She got to live a little bit longer.”
Fans flooded the comments under Parsons’ interview with “Tamron Hall” on YouTube, expressing relief that producers kept her character.
One commenter reacted to Parsons’ bombshell statement by writing, “I’m darn glad that they didn’t get rid of Hilary. And they couldn’t have found a more talented and charming young woman to portray Hilary than Ms. Karyn Parsons.”
A second fan who felt the same said, “I’m glad they didn’t cut her because she [fit] perfectly in that show.”
A third person who was relieved declared, “That would’ve been a big mistake to cut her out! She added a little razzle dazzle to the show.”
But the character survived the cut and returned in the 2022 reboot, Bel-Air, with Grammy-nominated singer Coco Jones portraying Hilary, a grounded and ambitious young woman, a major shift from Parsons’ version.
Parsons told Harper’s Bazaar in 2022 that audiences didn’t initially like the ’90s Hilary. She recalled a time when she was partying in Paris and a fan came up to ask if she was the actress who played Hilary.
Once she confirmed, the fan said, “Oh, we hate you.”
Parsons added, “There have been people all along who have liked her, but it’s also changed …t he appreciation for Hilary, I have to say, has changed.”
She continued, “It’s gone from people kind of laughing at this ditzy quality to people saying ‘No, no, no, she’s ambitious! She wants what she wants! She’s incredibly confident!’ I think more modern women have an appreciation for her.”
And that appreciation has paid off.
Now, Hilary has gone from nearly missing the original series to headlining her own show. In August 2026, producers announced that Jones would continue playing Hilary in the character’s self-titled series.
The storyline follows Hilary’s journey as she relocates to New York after accepting a new job offer with celebrity chef Yvonne Durand. Her goal is to set herself apart from her Bel-Air connections, but she’ll soon learn success, friendship, and love come at a cost.
As for the woman who originally made the character famous, Parsons has had a limited number of acting roles since “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” disappearing from screens altogether between 2003 and 2018 as she raised her two children with director Alexandre Rockwell.
