Let's talk about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars and how this will affect each career... whose side are you on?
Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on the Oscars stage. Yep… that happened.
Ah, it feels so good to live through history.
The Oscars are the most prestigious night in Hollywood and it’s usually a classy event. Not everyone gets invited, it’s not easy to win an Academy Award, and the last place you’d expect someone to get punched would be at the Oscars and I’ll explain why.
You can only imagine the world’s shock as Chris Rock makes a joke about Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair and bald look.
Creator: Jeff Kravitz | Credit: FilmMagic
What happened?
Chris, who was introducing the award for Best Documentary, joked to Jada in the audience, saying "Jada, I love ya. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see ya."
GI Jane is a movie that came out in 1997 and it featured Demi Moore who famously trained for months to endure the physical requirements for the film, and she shaved her head for the part. So because she had a shaved head, Chris is basically saying that Jada will be in the second installment of the film.
Now here’s why the joke is offensive…
Jada suffers from the autoimmune disorder alopecia, which attacks hair follicles resulting in bald spots and hair loss. She opened up about her issues with hair loss in 2018 during an episode of her show Red Table Talk, saying that "It was terrifying when it first started. I was in the shower one day and had just handfuls of hair in my hands and I was just like, 'Oh my god, am I going bald?'”
After the joke, you can see Will laughing but Jada looking very unimpressed and quite annoyed.
Will looked at Jada and then took the stage and smacked Chris across the face.
Smacked, punched, whatever it is, we just know that Chris’ jaw was sizzling after that. Chris is clearly taken aback trying to laugh it off and say “wow Will Smith just slapped the shit out of me.” It was kinda like a pinch-me-is-this-real moment.
And then you have the now-famous one-liner “Keep my wife's name out your f---ing mouth!"
So that was insane… I literally gasped when I saw that go down.
For most of the US media, the feed went silent after the slap, but of course, it was being broadcasted worldwide and not every country muted the sound.
Then within 30 mins… Will won the Oscar for Best Actor as he gave some sort of emotional speech.
The crazy part? Both Will and Jada attended the Vanity Fair Oscars after-party and partied the night away. Will did not seem like he was phased at all.
Was it scripted?
Hell no!
The last thing Hollywood would want on stage is a physical altercation like that. Sure if it was the bar, or the club, or a WWE ring, then that’s cool, but at the Oscars?
It was definitely not scripted and I even texted sources about it when it happened and they all said that everyone backstage was in shambles. It wasn’t a situation that anyone imagined would happen and the Academy Awards had an issue on their hands because there are rules that go against this and what you can broadcast.
You’re not supposed to curse on live television let alone at the prestigious Oscars and hitting someone on stage is literally assault.
Everyone in the audience was shocked and Lupita Nyong'o’s face behind Will literally killed me. She was absorbing all the tea and looking gorgeous at that.
Even Nicole Kidman was in absolute shock
Myung Chun / Getty
No one expected this. This isn’t the VMA’s red carpet where Machine Gun Kelley and Conor McGregor got into it.
Getty Images
You see, people expect the VMAs to be trashy because there’s a time and place for it all, but the fact that it was at the Oscars is what made everyone be like oh shit.
Who was in the wrong?
This is a huge debate: Are you team Chris or are you team Will?
After conversing with you guys on Twitter earlier today, I realize that this may not be a hot take, but I think Will is more in the wrong.
Physical violence is never the answer. It was a distasteful joke that could have been handled later or Will could have told him to shut the fck up without getting up and hitting him.
People need to understand that shading someone or cursing at someone is one thing, but to get on stage and literally hit someone is something completely different and that’s where Will lost everyone.
This angered a lot of celebrities & people in general, from 2 angles:
The first angle is that you wouldn’t want to go into a work-related event and get hit. No matter what happens, physical violence isn’t the answer.
And the second angle comes from a more biased perspective saying that if it was Will was getting made fun of, Jada would be dying of laughter mainly because Jada has said some controversial things about their relationship on her show. She’s spoken about being in an entanglement with other men and basically insinuating that she’s in an open relationship, while he’s not… it’s weird and I don’t want to get into it now.
But basically, for the past year or so, there have been viral tweets and posts about how Jada wakes up in the morning just to clown Will and make him look less of a man.
So with that narrative floating around and then you have Will basically sacrificing his Oscar and career to attack a man on stage for making a joke, everyone was like…. Get your priorities in check.
I’ve also seen some people from the black community criticizing him for making the black community look bad and attacking another black man, especially with how everyone has been fighting for the Oscars to be more inclusive.
Will is only 1 out of 5 black men to win the Oscar for Best Actor and now it’s going to be overshadowed with this drama.
After Will rocked the hell out of Chris’s jaw… it was time for another bad joke…
Amy Schumer did a bit during the ceremony in which she made Best Supporting Actress nominee Kirsten Dunst the butt of a bad joke and attempted to downplay the significance of Kirsten’s nomination by calling her a seat filler.
While explaining what seat fillers are, Amy felt the need to demonstrate this by approaching Kristen and her husband Jesse Plemons, who was a Best Supporting Actor nominee for the same movie that Kirsten is nominated in, and said, “OK, here’s a seat filler. Honey, do you want to go to the bathroom?” whilst grabbing her hand and pulling her out of her seat.
Amy then said, “Jesse I loved you in ‘Power of the Dog” to which he replies saying, “You know, that was my wife, Amy,” and he looked quite unamused.
Amy then takes up a notch and says, “You’re married to that seat filler?”
It was very cringey, but Amy said on Instagram that the joke was planned and they were all in on it. Do you believe her?
This interaction was obviously compared to the Will & Chris situation and everyone was like Jesse defended his wife without attacking someone.
I’d also like to note that it was confirmed that Chris’ joke was not scripted and it was kind of just improvised on the spot. I don’t know if I believe that, but let me know what you guys think.
Was the joke racially motivated?
There were a bunch of viral tweets talking about how Chris was making fun of a black woman for being bald in a sea of white women and this is hypocritical coming from him considering he made a whole documentary about black women's hair.
The jokes are offensive for sure, but I don’t think they were racially motivated. Feel free to agree or disagree with me in the comments down below.
I don’t think it was racially motivated only because making fun of women being bald has unfortunately always been a thing. Demi Lovato gets ripped a new every day for their bald look. Miley Cyrus was shredded every other week when she shaved her head back in 2013. Katy Perry’s Witness era arguably flopped because of her buzzcut.
Making fun of women and their hair always goes hand in hand. It’s sad, but it’s happened countless times.
The point of the story is, an offensive joke being made doesn’t give anyone the right to physically hit someone. And it’s not like Will and Chris were in close vicinity with each other and it was a knee-jerk reaction.
No… Will laughed… turned to look at Jada, got up, walked down to the stage, and hit him.
He could have intimidated him or done anything else besides punching him on live tv ON STAGE. Like seriously, he coulda thrown a WWE Edge like spear AFTER Chris got off the stage, or backstage… or in the streets, but on the Oscars stage?
Come on…
Is Chris Rock going to press charges?
No.
The Los Angeles Police Department has said that Chris is not going to press charges.
They said, "LAPD investigative entities are aware of an incident between two individuals during the Academy Awards program. The incident involved one individual slapping another. The individual involved has declined to file a police report. If the involved party desires a police report at a later date, LAPD will be available to complete an investigative report."
Do you guys think that Chris will file one later on?
Is Will’s Oscar going to be revoked?
After the incident, the Academy tweeted a short statement stating they do not "condone violence of any form."
The Academy did not address if Will violated its code of standards, or if he will face repercussions.
The code of standards, which was updated in December 2017 in the wake of the Me Too movement, asks its members to behave ethically and uphold the academy's "values of respect for human dignity, inclusion and a supportive environment that fosters creativity."
The code states the academy is "categorically opposed to any form of abuse, harassment or discrimination," and that there is no place for "people who abuse their status, power or influence in a manner that violates standards of decency."
The code states that the academy's board can suspend or expel those who violate the code of conduct or who "compromise the integrity" of the academy.
With that being said…
I don’t think that Will’s Oscar is going to be taken away mainly because someone like Harvey Weinstein has 81 Oscars and they were never revoked. He was only expelled from the motion picture academy in 2017.
However, this incident between Will and Chris will most likely taint Will’s career and he knows that… his fellow colleagues also know that…
During Will’s speech after winning Best Actor, he said that Denzel Washington told him, “At your highest moment, be careful — that’s when the devil comes for you.”
And you can see that Denzel Washington and Bradley Cooper were seen comforting Will after he slapped Chris on stage, during the commercial break, in a video posted by Scott Feinberg on Twitter.
During the commercial break, Will Smith is pulled aside and comforted by Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry, who motion for him to brush it off. Will appears to wipe tears from his eyes as he sits back down with Jada, with Denzel comforting Jada and Will’s rep by his side. pic.twitter.com/uDGVnWrSS2
— Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) March 28, 2022
His PR team is definitely in shambles right now.
What now?
Hollywood is all about image, connections, and how you present yourself. The way Will presented himself in an emotional state doesn’t give him the best image and the whole thing wasn’t seen as a professional reaction so I doubt that he’ll be invited back anytime soon.
However, Hollywood loves controversy and a good redemption story so I can see this progressing more in the future with Will capitalizing on it and maybe having a tell-all interview with Oprah.
Public opinion will influence the Academy’s decision and what steps Will takes next in his career, so let’s see how this will all unfold.
Also, I’m a sucker for drama so even though I’m like yeah Will is definitely more in the wrong, at the same time I’m happy it happened because this reminds me of how messy Hollywood used to be! I doubt any other Oscars moment would have ever been more memorable than this. Like this is ICONIC.
And slapping the sh!t out of Chris and then winning an Oscar-less than 30 minutes later is truly iconic.
I believe that there is so much more happening behind the scenes in terms of Will and Jada’s personal relationship… I don’t know anything right now, but if that changes, I’ll definitely let you know.
Will’s acceptance speech was very very emotional…. he was in tears the whole time… he apologized, and joked about hoping to be invited next year to the Oscars. The whole thing just made me feel really bad for him because there seems to be more to the story. Clearly, he loves and cares about Jada a lot, but it also seems like he constantly has to prove himself to her.
What do you guys think? Let me know down in the comments below. I have a feeling the people are going o be divided on this, but I’m definitely excited to see what you guys have to say.
I have a huge schedule coming out this week. I am finalizing all of the posts that are going to be on the first schedule. This is the reason why I haven’t posted anything new recently. It takes a little longer to have posts up when I have to make a schedule and the majority of you guys voted for a schedule on Twitter. So thank you for your patience and I’m excited to reveal the schedule soon!