Minutes before winning his Oscar, Will Smith went down in Oscar history for a
very different reason. Here's the story behind the slap heard around the world… literally.
Will Smith first became known for his breakout role as a fictionalized version of himself in
the 1990s sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. He also earned rave reviews for his film debut
in 1993's Six Degrees of Separation, and quickly ascended to bona fide movie
star status with massive hits like 1996's Independence Day and 1997's Men in Black.
Smith's charismatic performances in such films require a certain kind of talent,
but it's a talent that almost always goes unrecognized by the Academy. After 1999's
Wild Wild West was a critical and box office disappointment,
Smith transitioned to more serious acting with his titular role in Michael Mann's 2001 biopic, Ali.
Playing the legendary boxer earned Smith his first Oscar nomination, but he lost to Denzel
Washington for Training Day. Over the next two decades, the actor-rapper-producer's career would
volley back and forth between what he hoped would be critical favorites and more commercial fare.
"Don't ever do that again."
He received his second Oscar nomination for his lead performance as a struggling single father
in The Pursuit of Happyness; this time, Forest Whitaker won for "The Last King of Scotland."
In 2015, Smith starred in Concussion as the doctor who discovered chronic traumatic
encephalopathy in football players. He didn't make the 2016 best actor cut,
but he and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, told Good Morning America their boycott of
the event had only to do with the lack of diversity in that year's nominees. Still,
Smith was widely perceived as wanting to win one of those little gold men one day.
Will Smith's best chance for an Oscar came with 2021's King Richard,
a film he co-produced about the father of the tennis-playing Williams sisters. King Richard
was almost universally liked by critics and audiences in a relatively weak year for movies,
only about 18 months removed from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film and its
star collected just about every accolade that they could leading up to the Oscars.
Awards are usually something of a horse race, with a campaign season not unlike that of an
election. Actors in particular have to walk a fine line between being available to press and Academy
members and being overexposed. Smith handled the lead-up to the Academy Awards perfectly. He was
charming in interviews. He used his acceptance speeches to heap praise on his collaborators,
co-stars, and the Williams family. He won every major precursor to the Oscars,
including the BAFTA, SAG, Golden Globe, and multiple critics' prizes.
King Richard went on to be nominated for six Academy Awards, including best actor, and by
March, Smith was the frontrunner for the win. Winning an Oscar is never a sure thing, even for
those at the top of the betting odds, but Smith was about as dominant as any best actor candidate
had ever been. That night at the Dolby Theatre, his victory was practically a foregone conclusion.
With only about an hour to go before his dream of winning an Oscar seemed all but guaranteed
to come true, Will Smith did something that he'll surely regret for the rest of his life. Chris Rock
took the stage to present the award for best documentary feature. As is standard procedure
for Oscar presenters, Rock had some pre-written material to deliver before listing the nominees.
Rock started by teasing husband and wife Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz,
who were both nominated for lead actor and actress respectively. Then the stand-up
comedian went off-script and turned his attention to Will and Jada Pinkett Smith,
who sat in the front row near the center. The offending punchline was,
"Jada, I love ya. G.I. Jane 2 can't wait to see it."
Smith appeared to laugh at first, as if being a good sport about it,
and Jada rolled her eyes. A moment later, Smith stood, walked onstage toward Rock,
and slapped him across the face with his open right hand. Smith returned to his seat, where
he looked decidedly more upset than he'd been only a few seconds before, and began shouting at Rock.
Rock took a beat to compose himself before saying,
"That was, uh, greatest night in the history of television."
Because awards shows frequently feature celebrity skits and stunts,
people in the room as well as people watching on TV couldn't tell whether the slap was a clumsily
executed attempt at comedy or a real altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock. However,
those seated nearby Will and Jada, like, seemed to realize what was happening in real time.
Oscar watchers at home got their first clue that the slap was real when the audio cut out
during the American broadcast. ABC airs live programs in the United States on a 20-second
delay. Had the tense exchange been a bit, the network wouldn't have taken this step.
In the uncensored version, Rock's shock is apparent in the way reacts to the assault. Despite
the deeply uncomfortable tension in the Dolby Theater, Rock still had to award the Oscar for
best documentary to Questlove for his film Summer of Soul, in front of a still-confused crowd.
Questlove later told Jimmy Fallon that he was meditating during the announcement
of his category and wasn't aware of what had occurred between his friends, Smith and Rock.
"When I open my eyes I didn't realize, I was like 'Why is everyone so quiet?' Like,
I literally was not present for that whole entire moment."
While Will Smith's behavior was inexcusable, Chris Rock's joke was also criticized in the immediate
aftermath of the slap. Some commenters merely pointed out that the quip, which was a reference
to a nearly 25-year-old movie, wasn't very funny. However, the majority of those discussing the
G.I. Jane line and the slap brought up Jada Pinkett Smith's alopecia diagnosis.
The actress went public with her condition in a 2018 Instagram post. She explained that she
chose to shave her head when patches of her hair began to fall out because she didn't
want anyone to think that she had undergone something more serious, such as brain surgery.
Pinkett Smith said dealing with and talking about the medical condition was difficult,
but she remained in good spirits. The post was viewed more than two million times,
and Pinkett Smith's alopecia was fairly common knowledge by 2022.
In the days after the ceremony, Rock's brother claimed to the Los
Angeles Times that the comedian wasn't aware of Pinkett Smith's diagnosis and
wouldn't have gone there had he known about her struggles with hair loss.
Hollywood's a small world. According to Newsweek, the Smiths and Chris Rock had a
decades-old personal and working relationship prior to the slap. In 1995, Rock guest-starred
on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, where he and Will Smith became friends. A decade later,
Jada Pinkett Smith and Rock both voiced characters in the animated Madagascar films. Over the years,
Rock has expressed admiration for the Smiths and their children. However,
the good will began to turn sour in 2016 when Rock first used the Oscar stage to mock the couple.
Rock was asked to host the 2016 Oscars in the wake of the 2015 #OscarsSoWhite controversy,
when none of the 20 nominees in the acting categories were people of color. When it
happened again in 2016, the Smiths and a number of prominent Black filmmakers
boycotted the ceremony. Among many other talented actors of color who went without nominations,
many believed Smith was snubbed for his performance in Concussion.
Rock poked fun at Will's dashed Oscar hopes and at Jada's protest
in one of his monologues at the award show. Speaking about Will, he said,
"It's not fair that Will was this good and didn't get nominated. It's
also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for Wild Wild West!"
And in a dig at Jada's more subdued celebrity status, Rock made the joke,
"Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna's panties. I wasn't invited."
The public nature of the slap provided a window through which the public could
view Will and Jada Pinkett Smith's infamously complicated marriage.
Though they've been married since 1997, Jada has occasionally expressed some provocative
opinions about the very concept of marriage, which may have led to the public perception
that she was less than content. Eventually, gossip began to spread that Jada had engaged
in an affair with singer Marc Anthony and that the Smiths had an open relationship. In fact,
the couple even separated for a time, though they remained legally married.
"I was devastated even worse than a divorce. We — we broke up. We broke up within our marriage."
Things reached a fever pitch in 2020 when singer August Alsina asserted that Will had given him
his blessing to date his wife. Though Jada's camp again denied the story, she and Will aired their
marital problems with more specificity during an episode of her talk show, Red Table Talk.
Jada admitted that she had been in a relationship with Alsina while she and Smith were in the midst
of their trial separation. Will went into more detail about their ups and downs in his
2021 memoir. The Smiths remain together, but their reactions to Chris Rock's joke at the
94th Oscars were scrutinized through the lens of the intrigue surrounding their love life.
Only seconds after the slap, the entertainment industry and the public at large sorted into two
sides: one that defended Chris Rock's joke and one that defended Will Smith's anger.
"It is, uh, it is Monday.
Unless you're Chris Rock, because I'm pretty sure he got slapped into next week."
In the room, Smith was comforted by the likes of Bradley Cooper, Denzel Washington, and Tyler
Perry. Elsewhere in the audience, attendees — including Serena Williams — sat stunned. But,
while some celebrities like LaKeith Stanfield, Queen Latifah, and Minnie Driver expressed
empathy for all parties involved, many threw their support behind either Smith or Rock.
Judd Apatow, Amy Schumer, Mark Hamill, Stephen Colbert, Kathy Griffin, Zoe Kravitz, Mia Farrow,
O.J. Simpson, and many more were appalled that Smith resorted to violence or expressed concern
about the precedent that Smith may have set for audience members attacking comedians. Others,
like Tiffany Haddish, Nicki Minaj, Sophia Bush, and Will's son Jaden Smith,
either sympathized for Will or criticized Rock for his insensitive one-liner.
The general public's opinion seemed to be split down the middle. In the aftermath,
countless think pieces would be written about how the slap related to race, toxic masculinity,
mental health, and myriad other topics. The incident was far too
thorny for anyone to fully figure out, but that didn't stop thousands from weighing in.
In the interest of the many other honorees in attendance, producers for the Oscars decided to
keep the broadcast going after the slap. After the fact, the organization tweeted a short,
prepared statement disavowing Smith's actions and celebrating the other nominees.
Upon winning his Best Actor Oscar, Will Smith seemed to understand immediately
that he'd forever tarnished what was supposed to be his big night. Still, somewhat unexpectedly,
Smith received a standing ovation from most of those in attendance,
which didn't sit well with some in the room and others watching from home.
The atmosphere of the event was made more tense by Will's speech. He spoke for well over the allotted
time for Oscar recipients, and used his soapbox to make some questionable comparisons between
his assault on Chris Rock and Richard Williams' parenting style, positioning his actions as born
out of love for his family. However, for many listening, this analogy only brought to mind
language used by many abusers to repackage their emotional and physical abuse as love.
After the award show concluded, Smith preemptively resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences and, weeks later, the organization announced that he would be banned from the Oscars
ceremony and any other related events for 10 years. His punishment did not, however, exclude
him from being nominated for future awards. Smith publicly accepted these decisions in a statement.
For his part, Will Smith has tried to make amends and move on. He put out a YouTube video
in July 2022 outlining his progress, saying that he apologized to Rock and his family,
Jada and their own family, as well as his fellow 2022 nominees.
"It really breaks my heart to have stolen and — and tarnissed — tarnished your moment."
He also said that he reached out to Rock directly,
and even though the comedian did not press charges, he was not yet ready to talk.
During his press tour for Emancipation, Smith spoke to former The Daily Show host Trevor Noah
about the slap and acknowledged he created a mess for himself. Smith does have upcoming projects
in the works, primarily as a producer, and a potential Bad Boys 4 is still up in the air.
Though his star may eventually rise again, Will Smith's name and reputation will forever
be associated with the unfortunate episode that marked one of the best and worst days of his life.