In one of the most shocking moments in Oscars history, Will Smith stormed onstage and slapped presenter Chris Rock for a joke the comic made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith

The drama began while Rock was presenting best documentary during the 2022 ceremony. Rock made a crack about Pinkett Smith getting ready to film a sequel to G.I. Jane — an apparent reference to the actress having a shaved head. (Pinkett Smith has been open about her hair loss due to alopecia.)


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/will-smith-chris-rock-oscars-1235120096/


https://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/attachment.php?attachmentid=273874&d=1648443948

I feel like that joke crossed a line. Kinda cruel, since she has a medical condition.

I feel like that joke crossed a line. Kinda cruel, since she has a medical condition.

What Josie Davis (AKA Sarah Powell on Charles in Charge) has to say (https://twitter.com/JosieDavis/status/1508334724762140672) about the matter:
You hematite it’s not a good joke. You don’t make it physical and scream obscenities esp on National tv. That was ASSAULT. That’s NOT ok.
@chrisrock should sue for that.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was secretly staged.

WS is that type of person.

Attention Will Smith: You and your enormous ego need to check yourself. You just assume that everyone knows that Jada has alopecia. Believe it or not, not everyone follows you and your family to the point where they know every aspect of your lives. Like me, Chris Rock may not have even known that Jada has alopecia. Like me, Chris Rock may have thought she shaved her head because of G.I. Jane. Chris Rock may have made some tasteless jokes in the past but he is not cruel or evil. I can’t imagine Chris Rock ridiculing someone for a medical condition that they can’t control. And you know what, Will Smith? Even if he did know that she has alopecia, that is no excuse for what you did. You don’t go around physically assaulting people because they hurt your feelings. Will Smith, you are an unclassy brut. You are the one who behaved like a caveman. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Saw this montage of celebrity reactions in the audience after The Slap:

It was a shocking moment. It was difficult to tell what happened until watching the unedited video. I can see both sides.

If Chris Rock knew about her condition, then he crossed the line. You don't joke about somebody's medical condition like that. I'm sure he keeps updated on the news and gossip. He did that Good Hair documentary. He knows women get emotional when they lose their hair.

If Will Smith had said or did nothing, then he would have been criticized for not standing up for his wife. He only reacted that way when he saw her reaction. Sometimes people's emotions get the best of them. It was an overreaction. He didn't need to get up out of his seat. I wouldn't call it an assault. He slapped him where he probably felt it. It didn't appear to hurt him. He very easily could have knocked him to the floor with a punch.

They should both apologize to each other, shake hands and move on with their lives. It's sad that many people will remember this slap heard around the world instead of his first Oscar win, which was well deserved.

273880

Saw this montage of celebrity reactions in the audience after The Slap:
Honestly, I don't even recognize most of those people. Sure, The Rock, Meryl Streep, Mel Gibson, Matt Damon... Are the others Lindsay Lohan, Regina George, is that Ryan Reynolds laughing?

It was a shocking moment. It was difficult to tell what happened until watching the unedited video. I can see both sides.

If Chris Rock knew about her condition, then he crossed the line. You don't joke about somebody's medical condition like that. I'm sure he keeps updated on the news and gossip. He did that Good Hair documentary. He knows women get emotional when they lose their hair.

If Will Smith had said or did nothing, then he would have been criticized for not standing up for his wife. He only reacted that way when he saw her reaction. Sometimes people's emotions get the best of them. It was an overreaction. He didn't need to get up out of his seat. I wouldn't call it an assault. He slapped him where he probably felt it. It didn't appear to hurt him. He very easily could have knocked him to the floor with a punch.

They should both apologize to each other, shake hands and move on with their lives. It's sad that many people will remember this slap heard around the world instead of his first Oscar win, which was well deserved.

Well said. If Chris Rock knew about JPS's alopecia, then the joke was mean; as you say, he knows women care about their hair. And of course, if Will Smith had done nothing but laugh at the joke, he would have gotten flak, as well. He probably should have just heckled Chris Rock briefly, as he did anyway.

I suspect they will shake hands and move on. Most guys will.

Honestly, I don't even recognize most of those people. Sure, The Rock, Meryl Streep, Mel Gibson, Matt Damon... Are the others Lindsay Lohan, Regina George, is that Ryan Reynolds laughing?

I believe that's Ryan Gosling laughing. The only other one's I recognize are Emma Stone, Salma Hayek, John Legend, and Michelle Williams...

I believe that's Ryan Gosling laughing. The only other one's I recognize are Emma Stone, Salma Hayek, John Legend, and Michelle Williams...

Huh. Turns out Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Gosling are different people (https://www.eonline.com/news/670408/ryan-reynolds-explains-the-difference-between-himself-and-ryan-gosling-on-twitter-read-his-explicit-answer). Never knew.

Team Chris Rock 100%

Apparently, the Academy has launched a formal investigation into the incident and will convene to decide how they will address the situation after officially condemning Will Smith's behavior:

https://www.wfla.com/news/national/will-smith-apologizes-for-slapping-chris-rock-after-academy-launches-review/

I wouldn't be surprised if it was secretly staged.

WS is that type of person.

Why was it so hard to believe The Slap wasn't staged? (https://slate.com/culture/2022/03/will-smith-chris-rock-oscars-slap-staged-real.html): "For those of us watching a censored telecast, what we watched go down between Rock and Smith seemed just manipulated enough that it could be part of the time-honored tradition of staged bits engineered for virality at the Academy Awards," says Madison Malone Kircher, pointing out that last year viewers were led to believe that Glenn Close dancing to "Da Butt" during last year's ceremony was a spontaneous moment. Kircher adds: "As viewers, we’ve been primed to assume everything we’re seeing at these events is orchestrated. Rarely are moments at the Academy Awards raw or real. That’s by design. Maybe, maybe on a good year you’ll get a genuinely spontaneous outburst of emotion or a political diatribe that isn’t triangulated to serve one’s personal brand. More likely just a bleep or two when somebody curses live on air. But for the most part, you get canned jokes and cutaways to pretty people who are making precisely the staged faces people make when they know they are at risk of being on camera at any moment."

Well said. If Chris Rock knew about JPS's alopecia, then the joke was mean; as you say, he knows women care about their hair. And of course, if Will Smith had done nothing but laugh at the joke, he would have gotten flak, as well. He probably should have just heckled Chris Rock briefly, as he did anyway.

I suspect they will shake hands and move on. Most guys will.

Chris Rock's fans were stunned he would mock Jada Pinkett Smith's hair after making his 2009 Good Hair documentary (https://decider.com/2022/03/28/chris-rock-fans-confused-by-oscars-joke-given-his-2009-good-hair-documentary/)

Janet Hubert, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's original Aunt Viv, defends Smith (https://tvline.com/2022/03/28/will-smith-slapping-chris-rock-janet-hubert-aunt-viv-statement/): "There is only so much one can take… sometimes you have to slap back"

Janet Hubert, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's original Aunt Viv, defends Smith (https://tvline.com/2022/03/28/will-smith-slapping-chris-rock-janet-hubert-aunt-viv-statement/): "There is only so much one can take… sometimes you have to slap back"

Aunt Viv is wrong. There was no need for the slap. Will Smith could have simply heckled Chris Rock from the audience. He did anyway.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was secretly staged.

WS is that type of person.

That’s what a lot of people thought at first, me included, but at this point I’d say that ship has sailed.

Jada Pinkett Smith calls for "healing" amid husband Will Smith's Oscar controversy (https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/29/entertainment/jada-pinkett-smith-healing-ig/index.html)

"This is a season for healing and I'm here for it," she wrote in a statement posted to Instagram, two days after her husband slapped Chris Rock over a joke he made about her hair. Meanwhile, Will Smith’s mother, Carolyn Smith, said she's never seen her son "go off" like he did Sunday: “He is a very even, people person,” Carolyn Smith told Philadelphia’s local ABC affiliate Action News. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen him go off. First time in his lifetime…I’ve never seen him do that.”

ALSO:


New poll claims majority of Americans think Will Smith was right to slap Chris Rock (https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/shock-poll-majority-of-americans-side-with-will-smith-over-chris-rock-in-oscar-slap-brouhaha/)
Jim Carrey was "sickened" by the "spineless" standing ovation for Will Smith at the Oscars (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jim-carrey-sickened-will-smith-standing-ovation_n_62430278e4b0d7ac3d51f3db): “I was sickened by the standing ovation,” Carrey told Gayle King on CBS Mornings. “I felt like Hollywood is just spineless en masse.” Carrey said that if he were Chris Rock, he'd sue Smith for $200 million. “You do not have the right to ... smack somebody in the face because they said words,” Carrey said, adding that it was “a selfish moment that cast a pall over the whole thing.”
Whoopi Goldberg says Oscars didn't boot Smith so they wouldn't have to explain "why they're taking the Black man out" (https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/whoopi-goldberg-says-oscars-let-will-smith-alone-so-they-wouldnt-have-to-explain-why-theyre-taking-the-black-man-out/): "The reason they didn’t go and take him out is because that would have been another 15 — 20 minute explanation of why we’re taking the Black man out five seconds before they’re about to decide whether he’s won an Oscar or not," Goldberg said on The View. "So that’s, and I’m going to say I believe Will Packer made the right decision. He said, let’s get through the rest of this so we can deal with it wholeheartedly. So that’s what went on. This is not the first time craziness has happened on stage, but this is the first time we’ve seen anybody assault anybody on stage."
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says Smith's violent outburst perpetuates “stereotypes about the Black community" (https://www.thewrap.com/kareem-abdul-jabbar-will-smith-perpetuating-stereotypes-black-community/): “When Will Smith stormed onto the Oscar stage to strike Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife’s short hair, he did a lot more damage than just to Rock’s face,” the NBA legend wrote in a Monday column on his Substack titled “Will Smith Did a Bad, Bad Thing.” (https://kareem.substack.com/p/will-smith-did-a-bad-bad-thing) “With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community.”
Thomas Haden Church calls for Oscars to ban Smith "for the rest of his life" (https://www.eonline.com/news/1325085/why-thomas-haden-church-thinks-will-smith-should-be-banned-from-oscars-for-the-rest-of-his-life): "I think that Will Smith should be banned from the Oscars for the rest of his life," said the Oscar-nominated actor. "I think he should have his Academy membership stripped, but I don't think he should have the Oscar taken from him."


Stop making Will Smith's slap of Chris Rock more than what it is! (https://slate.com/culture/2022/03/will-smith-chris-rock-slap-nothing-more-or-less.html)

In the first 24 hours after The Slap, "every possible reaction to the incident has already been aired," says Joel Anderson. "Some people have understandably cautioned against any possible expression of tacit support for violence in public, as if we’re not already awash in a culture that already glorifies it. Others placed blame on Rock for gleefully passing along a tasteless joke that made light of Jada Pinkett-Smith’s autoimmune disorder. A few have pointed out the hypocrisy of the Academy’s public statement against violence, noting that it has long coddled and even glorified accused abusers like Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski, and Woody Allen, among others. Others connected the moment to racism, sexism, ableism, and even the larger breakdown in social mores in recent years. Like so many controversial events these days, it has taken on a mirage-like quality of something that might explain what’s wrong in American life, in different ways to different people...We don’t have to take this too seriously. We don’t have to live like this, mapping complex social phenomena on something fundamentally as straightforward and unexceptional as dudes using a personal slight—or a perceived one—as a pretext for getting physical. Unsurprisingly, the social media response has followed its own inevitable arc, from shocked to bemused to serious to exhausting."

ALSO:


How you respond to The Slap ends up saying more about you than it does Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith or Chris Rock (https://www.vice.com/en/article/88g7ka/oscars-slap-will-smith-chris-rock): "It’s a Rorschach test, revealing the specific ways in which the take-havers imagine themselves as the protagonists of reality," says Gita Jackson. "Although there does seem to be a clear cause-and-effect in terms of why this went down, there’s also a distinct lack of context granted by the fact that celebrities and their lives are so distant from everyone else and theirs. Smith and Rock are both black men in Hollywood; it’s very possible that they know each other and that this beef extends beyond what we saw last night. It’s equally possible this was all a farcical misunderstanding brought about by Smith assuming everyone is up to date on his family’s various health problems and some writer not thinking to take 10 seconds to use Google. In any case, they seem perfectly capable of resolving it on their own, and neither Rock nor Smith seem to have left the night worse for wear. Since we as a culture invented the idea of celebrity, we have used the lives of strangers to explain our own. They become like Greek gods or royalty; these are people who experience things for us, about whom we tell stories in order to understand ourselves. The internet has only made this process faster, so that the free association between what happened and what it reminds you of happens more quickly than one’s ability for critical thinking. Cultural events like this are made of clay. They have so little structure, they’re pliable enough to take any form that you need them to."
Presenting "The Complete Guide to Will Smith Slap Takes" (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/the-complete-guide-to-will-smith-slap-takes.html): "It was the Slap that launched a thousand takes," says Chas Danner and Margaret Hartmann of Intelligencer, adding: "Once it became clear that the incident was not staged, seemingly everyone felt compelled to form an opinion on it and to share their views with friends, family members, co-workers, social-media followers, their hair stylist, their dog walker, strangers on line at the grocery store, etc. Maybe you’ve already run through your initial viewpoints but can’t find the motivation to talk to other humans about anything else today. Never fear: We at Intelligencer have compiled the definitive guide to every possible slap take."
Will Smith should definitely not be invited back to next year's Oscars (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-03-28/editorial-will-smith-hitting-chris-rock-should-cost-him-his-invitation-to-next-years-oscar-show): "On Monday, the academy responded more strongly, saying it 'condemns' Smith’s actions and added that it had begun a formal review and will 'explore further action and consequences,'" the Los Angeles Times says in an editorial. "It can start by making it clear to Smith and the public that he will not be invited back to the Oscar show next year as a guest or a presenter. Traditionally, the winner of the lead actor award presents the Oscar the following year to the leading actress winner (as Anthony Hopkins did Sunday night with Jessica Chastain.)"
It seems like there's a double standard in the reaction to Will Smith since Hollywood has a history of embracing violent (white) men (https://time.com/6161748/will-smith-chris-rock-slap-oscars-nuance/): "Hollywood’s history with interpersonal violence is complex because Hollywood is nothing if not forgiving of white men’s violence, especially against women, as evidenced by the long careers of Roman Polanski and Harvey Weinstein," says Mikki Kendall. "Mel Gibson’s periodic returns to the screen—including a 2016 nomination for Best Director—after facing allegations of domestic violence as well as spewing racist and antisemitic attacks on costars and others signals a willingness of many in Hollywood to look the other way. The Oscars have also never been immune to public conflict. John Wayne reportedly had to be restrained by six men when Sacheen Littlefeather used her time at the podium to refuse Marlon Brando’s Godfather win on his behalf when he boycotted. She later claimed she was blacklisted by studios, which effectively ended her acting career. Yet the conflict at this year’s Oscars seems to have many who have been, let’s just say, morally flexible about violence ready to take a stand against it now."
The Slap turned the Oscars into an A-list adaptation of The Jerry Springer Show (https://www.thewrap.com/will-smith-2022-oscars-good-changed-my-mind-i-love-the-oscars/): "What happened (Sunday) night at the Dolby Theater proved definitively that the Academy Awards are still capable of delivering a jaw-dropping water-cooler moment that can have the whole world talking the morning after," says Benjamin Svetkey. "Granted, it took a major movie star committing an act of physical violence to pull it off, but whatever. As a TV show, there’s no denying it was riveting. I literally jumped from my sofa to get a closer view of the screen when Will Smith marched up to the podium to smack Rock in the face after the comedian cracked a relatively bland if still distasteful joke about Smith’s wife’s shaved head (“Jada, I love you. GI Jane 2, can’t wait to see you”). Was it real or some sort of schtick? Was my TV broken or did ABC cut the sound? And then, right afterwards, why was P Diddy plowing through the rest of the show — move along, nothing to see here — as if the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened at the Oscars hadn’t just happened?"
The Slap was the best thing that could've happened to the Oscars (https://www.vulture.com/2022/03/the-oscars-are-just-a-work-event.html): "The incident that spawned a million takes was shocking both because it was so unexpected and because it made the awards feel abruptly intimate — not some distant glitzy gathering but a work event for a constricted group of people with its own internal hierarchies and long-standing grudges," says Alison Willmore. "Will Smith getting up out of his front-row seat and walking the relatively short distance onto the stage to smack Chris Rock was a breaking of protocol, and it was also a breaking of the Oscars pretense that this is the night Hollywood gets together to enjoy its own company. It’s an industry function, and plenty of industries have their own star system and awards, and they’re probably all as messy — they’re just not televised."
Comedians from Rosie O'Donnell to Kathy Griffin to Rob Schneider defended Rock (https://deadline.com/2022/03/comedians-defend-chris-rock-will-smith-slap-1234989485/): “Let me tell you something,” Griffin tweeted, “it’s a very bad practice to walk up on stage and physically assault a Comedian. Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theaters.”
Longtime former Oscar ceremony writer Bruce Vilanch weighs on the handling of The Slap (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/bruce-vilanch-will-smith-oscar-slap-star-born-1235121071/): "I think they’ll have to dig their way through the idea that somebody was supposed to arrest Will Smith for assault," he says. "I don’t think anybody was sitting backstage looking through the Academy code of conduct. And I suspect if they were, they decided, 'Just let it play out, and it’ll be dealt with after the broadcast.' To call attention to it by then having him disappear from his seat would really overshadow everything that was going on, so I think that was the decision that they made." As for Rock's joke, Vilanch says: "I certainly know that when people get up onstage, comedians especially, they say things, and they’re in-the-moment, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. And then when it doesn’t work on the Oscars, they hear about it for the rest of their lives....This was, like, a calculated move. (Smith) got up, and he strode over there, and he did it. I think the moment it happened, you realized this was not in the script."
The Real World: Seattle's Irene McGee, who was famously slapped on the show, offers her support to Rock (https://decider.com/2022/03/28/real-world-seattle-irene-chris-rock/)
At the 2000 MTV VMAs, Shawn Wayans pretended to be Chris Rock getting assaulted by various celebrities (https://twitter.com/CAMcGrady/status/1508461428134580228)
Beyoncé has been connected to some of the most chaotic award show moments: Does the Slap drama prove she's cursed? (https://slate.com/culture/2022/03/will-smith-oscars-2022-slap-beyonce-curse.html)
A former Los Angeles County D.A. calls on prosecutors to file charges against Smith, even without Chris Rock (https://nypost.com/2022/03/28/la-prosecutors-could-and-should-charge-will-smith-former-da-steve-cooley/): “Charges actually can and should be filed because the offense was against the state of California. It’s not Chris Rock versus Will Smith in a criminal matter. The LAPD and the city attorney should not close the door on what was an obvious criminal offense and is easily provable,” said Steve Cooley, L.A. County's D.A. from 2000 to 2012.
Will Smith's slap tarnished a night of pride for Black Hollywood -- and his legacy (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2022-03-28/will-smith-chris-rock-oscars-2022-slap-legacy): "Smith delivered a gift-wrapped present to conservatives dismissive of the Black Lives Matter movement and increasingly frustrated by the battle against systemic racism, from voting rights to critical race theory," says Greg Braxton. "It was easy to imagine Tucker Carlson watching the awards in his pajamas, leaping up and pointing to the screen: 'Look! White people aren’t hurting Black folks. It’s really Black-on-Black crime. Those people are beating up on each other.' Smith’s heroic stature inside and outside Black culture, and his carefully constructed persona as the patriarch of a celebrity family, only intensifies the fallout. And his actions have now placed his reputation in jeopardy. That is true whether you take Rock at his word — that he was making a G.I. Jane joke — or believe he crossed the line by coming for Pinkett Smith over a medical condition. You don’t need to justify Rock’s rhetoric to be mortified by Smith’s disproportionate response. Nor do you need to demand condemnation from the NAACP, investigation by the LAPD or expulsion from the academy to recognize the utter inappropriateness of a movie star assaulting an award presenter on national television."
There was an unreality to the Will Smith slap and its aftermath (https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/03/will-smith-slap-chris-rock-oscars/629405/): "It was unsettling to see Smith accept his Oscar—shortly after being counseled by Denzel Washington and his publicist—and receive a standing ovation," says Sophie Gilbert. "It was strange to hear him claim the mantle of a protector, and compare himself to his character Richard Williams, 'a fierce defender of his family.' It was strange to watch him say he wanted to be 'a vessel for love' and 'an ambassador of that kind of love and care and concern,' right after the most flagrant outburst of violence in Oscars history. It was odd to see him declaring that “love will make you do crazy things,” while his wife regally nodded, and to laugh his gleeful, barking Will Smith laugh, that laugh, the kind any casual moviegoer could identify with their eyes closed, right after saying that he hoped the Academy would have him back. It was eerie to learn that Smith and his family danced the rest of the night away at the Vanity Fair party, the triumphant star clutching his statuette. All of it felt a little like an exercise in entertainment-industry gaslighting. Did we really see what we thought we saw? Did it matter? Maybe not. Maybe the lines between reality and constructed entertainment have blurred beyond the point where they’re discernible anymore. Smith’s behavior was so extraordinary that it seemed, watching, as though he might be in crisis."

Aunt Viv is wrong. There was no need for the slap. Will Smith could have simply heckled Chris Rock from the audience. He did anyway.

Tatyana Ali (https://twitter.com/TatyanaAli)
@TatyanaAli
·
2m (https://twitter.com/TatyanaAli/status/1510479192806154240)
I love #WillSmith very much.
@chrisrock
didn’t deserve to be hit. Period. My heart aches for what has happened. I don’t know what caused that chaos & confusion, but I do know that Will has a big heart. I’ve seen him many times try his best to do what is right. I believe in him.