We all are aware of that awful night during the 94th Academy Awards on March 27 this year when Will Smith walked onstage and slapped comedian Chris Rock across the face during Rock’s presentation for Best Documentary Feature. The terrible act was in response to Rock’s joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald head, which she has been shaving since 2021, due to Alopecia Areata. After slapping, Smith returned to his seat and shouted profanity at Rock, who briefly responded, but completed his presentation without further interruption.
The incidence shook the whole world and made several headlines. For the heinous act, Will has been forbidden from attending any Academy events for ten years as a punishment. Since then, netizens have flooded their opinions on social media. Few have supported Smith while some supported Rock. Although afterwards, the celeb duo has apologised on their respective social media handles to each other, as well as to the audiences.
After the incident, Will Smith literally drew himself away from all the limelight. He even deactivated his all social media handles too. Later in April, he first publicly appeared at Mumbai, India after one month of detachment.
Now, during the promotion of his upcoming film ‘Emancipation’ on ‘The Daily Show’ with Trevor Noah, Will Smith finally opened up and recalled about that unforgettable Oscar night. He shared, “That was a horrific night as you can imagine. There are many nuances and complexities to it but at the end of the day, I lost it.”
After talking to Trevor for a long time, Will also looked at the audiences in the show and explained about his journey, “I guess what I would say, you just never know what somebody is going through. In the audience right now, you are sitting next to strangers and somebody’s mother died last week, somebody’s child is sick, somebody just lost their job, somebody just found out their spouse cheated. You just don’t know what’s going on with people. I was going through something that night. Not that that justifies my behaviour at all.”
Further when Noah asked Smith about what he learned with the experience, the ‘King Richard’ (2021) actor said, “We just got to be nice to each other. It’s hard and I guess the thing that was most painful for me is I took my hard and made it hard for other people.”
Will Smith also shared that how his 9-year-old nephew questioned him about the incident. He said, “My nephew is nine. He is the sweetest little boy. We came home. He had stayed up late to see his uncle Will and we are sitting in my kitchen and he is on my lap and he is holding the Oscar and he is just like, Why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?” Smith got teary-eyed while talking about the topic.
