The slap that was heard across the world, as they say, in an apparent
unscripted moment that stunned viewers and literally stunned Chris Rock.
Will Smith went on stage and smacked Chris in the face after he made a joke
about the act, his wife, while presenting the best documentary award at the Oscars.
Let's set the scene.
It's the 94th Academy Awards.
It's the big night as all the big names are there.
Beyonce opens up the Oscars with an amazing performance for a song.
Be Alive Next.
Co-host Regina Hall, Wanda Sykes and Amy Schumer opened the show.
Then after a couple of awards and performances,
Here comes the comedian Chris Rock as a presenter.
He then decided to pick on Jada Pinkett Smith for a bit,
which apparently wasn't a part of the Oscar script.
Chris joked that Smith's wife
was in a gig in two movie, which was a reference to her buzzcut hair.
Jada, who didn't take the joke well, has said she has alopecia,
which is a condition that leads to hair loss,
which indicates why she cut her hair.
But what's crazy is not just the smack is the events leading up to it.
Will Smith was seen generally laughing at the joke.
Not even 10 seconds later Will got on stage and Uh oh said
Chris, The next thing you know, textbook smack from Will.
The crowd started laughing, thinking maybe it was a joke
until we got this: [Will] Keep my wife's name out your ___ mouth.
[Chris] Wow, dude.
Yes, it was a G.I.
Jane joke.
[Will] Keep my wife's
out your f___ mouth.
[Chris] I'm going to. Okay.
As you can imagine, after this moment, social media went chaotic,
to say the least.
In less than one day, it got close to 100 million views on YouTube.
Twitter went hell mode and made a new meme minutes after the event.
And TikTok is doing TikTok things with this already iconic event.
Apparently this beef started back in 2016 when Chris was the host of the 2016
Oscars.
He had a segment
when he joked about Jada Smith and her husband boycotting the Oscars
in support of the #OscarsSoWhite online movement, which began
as a way to address the lack of diversity at the Academy Awards.
Jada's man, her man Will was not nominated for Concussion.
I get it. I get it.
You get mad, she said it's it's not fair that Will was this good
and didn't get nominated? Yeah, you're right.
It's also not fair.
The Will was paid 20 million for Wild Wild West.
Okay?
Back to
the 2021 Academy Awards after the heated exchange between the two.
Chris continued to show in shock and called the moment
the greatest night in the history of television.
Soon after, Smith won the Oscar for Best Actor and gave an emotional speech
in which he said, "I want to apologize to the Academy.
I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees." He later quoted
Denzel Washington saying, “At your highest moment, be careful.
That’s when the devil comes for you.” He ends the speech without acknowledging
or apologizing to Chris.
The speech didn't sit right with the majority, with comments
suggesting that he was crazy for justifying his actions.
In other comments argued
that his emotions were fake so he can win back the audience.
People all over social media were discussing if this situation was fake
to boost the ratings of the already declining viewership of the Academy's.
But I can say with clear confidence, this situation is real.
Let's take a look at this moment again.
Chris Rock makes a joke to Jada about her hair.
Will Smith is seen laughing at the joke while Jada rolls her eyes.
Chris then says, that was a nice one, probably meaning that he has darker jokes
and that which may be caused will to react and get up on stage.
At this point,
Chris maybe
thought he was going to roll with whatever funny thing Will was about to do,
because from the footage we have,
Will showed no sign of malice towards Chris Christie's.
Will walking toward him while laughing, expecting something lighthearted.
Chris
then kind of leans in, maybe thinking that Will was going to hug him or whisper
something to him.
Then comes a sucker punch out of nowhere.
It's possible Will wasn't mad at all.
Its possible Will was just joking with Chris.
Maybe Will miscalculate did on how hard he was going to smack him.
So when he smacked him with force, he probably knew
he messed up and improvised and acted like he was actually mad.
It's pretty unlikely that this theory is true.
But I just waned to throw that assumption out there.
This situation is so weird
because Will Smith isn't known to do any of that kind of bad nature.
The only thing that comes remotely close to
this is when a Ukrainian reporter unknowingly kiss will at a Men
In Black premiere.
Then he retaliated and lightly smacked him.
So at this point,
there's a pretty valid reason why this could be fake because you can see
Will smirking as if this is some joke in the crowd was even laughing.
Chris' adrenaline was most likely at an all time high hence
the way he was stuttering and mixing words.
Rock later tried to cool
Will down with the help of Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry.
As we all know, this was a bad look on Will's part.
Some people came to the defense of Will like his son Jaden Smith,
and many people didn't,
including the Oscars
as they tweeted out that they don't condone any violence of any form.
But that begs the question if the Academy's don't condone violence,
then why did they allow Willow Smith to go up on stage and accept his award
where he tried to rationalize
his shameful behavior with the film's main character and theme?
And now there's discussion of taking Smith's first ever Oscar trophy
because of that moment.
Will is one of the most likable people out there.
So him doing this was undoubtedly the biggest moment of his career.
He's probably going to be associated with that moment for the rest of his life.
There's people who are comparing this to the Kanye Taylor situation
that happened back in the 2009 VMAs, which I would argue doesn't even compare.
A drunk Kanye
who grabs a mic and yells into it, or a guy like Will Smith,
who's known as a class act that comes out of nowhere
and sucker punches you just because of a joke.
Oh, and by the way, the same joke that you were originally laughing at
the perception of Will Smith and his family was already starting to take a hit.
When Will went on Jada's red table talk, they discussed the affairs they both had.
But the main takeaway from everybody was the relationship between August and Jada.
And, of course, the viral means of Will came with that.
As a child star of the nineties turned worldwide sensation.
Will's rise to stardom came at a time when the mystique of a celebrity
was at the height of its power.
The unknown of the famous was very normal and people's consumptions
of these figures in their work.
Before the Internet, you had to rely on TV big screens or magazines
to get a glimpse of your favorite celebrity.
But with the rise of social media, their public and private lives
shortened to a simple button click.
Will's lifestyle suddenly became outdated, and the original power couple
would have to switch things up to stay relevant to this generation,
like having the red table talk and revealing stuff
about their private lives,
which of course, would cause the Internet to talk about for days.
Now we have this moment.
It seems so out of character for to do this.
Seeing an iconic character beloved by millions do this.
Then he takes it a step further and posts a cringeworthy Instagram video,
which basically shows that he doesn't care about the damage he did at the Oscars
until he posted an apology to his Instagram one day later.
But another thing to point out, this moment right here highlights
the complicated emotions that remain unresolved in their marriage.
In other words, there is something deeper that we don't know is going on
we just witnessed a friendly, loving person
that many people come to know experienced a breakdown.
This awful moment may have nothing to do with the joke Chris made.
Maybe it's we're trying to find the right moment
to prove that he's the tough guy,
which kind of makes sense
since he's been labeled corny and soft since his days of rapping
without profanity in the eighties and nineties.
In Will's Oscar win speech, he also said, quote, "I know to do what
we do, you got to be able to take abuse and have people talk to people about you.
In this business, you got to have people disrespecting you
and you got to smile and pretend that's okay." End quote.
This clearly explains the troubles Will is going through.
So this moment was just a tipping point.
What's next for Will and his family is unknown,
but it's likely his legacy has taken a huge hit from this moment
to say this is Will Smith's downfall is too early to say.
Despite the negativity Will's received, there is also a great amount of support
for him.
A poll conducted by Blue Rose Research found that 52% of people blame
Rock for the incident, compared to 47% who said Smith was out of line.
But like I said, it's too early to say, so we'll just have to wait and see.
[Will Smith] Before you lose your head, get all crazy and toss your hands up.
Just think, the person that uses their head can always defeat
the person that's just try to use their hands.
Now, remember that.
They got rules. They got rules. Like he has a rule.
The big player, he got a rule.
He got to wax his head every morning (Crowd laughter)
He follows the rules man!
He follows the rules.
Oh, these are jokes.
Come on.
[Host] See you got to into the characters and got hurt.
[Tony Rock] You gon hit my mother____ brother?
Cuz your b___ gave you a side-eye?!
[Oprah] When people show you who they are.
Believe them? [Maya Angelou] Yes. Absolutely.