- The slap heard around the world.
Therapist reacts.
I'm gonna react to Will Smith,
Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith,
alopecia, the slap, the Academy Awards.
In the words of Will Smith
in every movie he made in the nineties--
- Damn.
(upbeat music)
- Everyone's talking about it.
Will Smith slapped Chris Rock.
In Chris Rock's words--
- Will Smith just smacked the (beep) outta me.
- So what happened?
Well, Will Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith
has alopecia which is a condition
where your immune system attacks your hair follicles
resulting in hair loss.
And he made a fairly tasteless joke at the--
Not fairly, he made a tasteless joke
at the Academy Awards about it.
- Jada, I love you.
GI Jane two, can't wait to see it.
All right?
- And Will at first is laughing about it
but you can see Jada right here.
She's not having it, she's not amused.
And you can feel the air get sucked out of the room
and Chris Rock, he's like,
yeah okay, that was a good one.
Like he knew the joke was not his best
but Will Smith wasn't have it.
He gets out of his seat
and he walks up
and slaps Chris Rock across the face.
And lots of chatter about this today,
was this toxic masculinity on Will Smith's part?
To act in aggression and violence.
Or was it awesome that he's defending his family
and defending his wife, you know?
And as he-- As he alluded to
in his acceptance speech to be a protector
and to be an defender of the people
that you love and care about.
Like Richard Williams was right?
That he did the movie, King Richard about.
And so I'm just gonna share and weigh in
on my 2 cents on the whole thing.
But very first I wanna share a Facebook post
by Vanessa McWilliams, who herself has alopecia.
I just want to read her perspective
and I'm gonna share a little bit
of my thoughts as that we go along
and then we're gonna dive into the actual incident
and Will's acceptance speech.
And the link to Vanessa's post
I'm gonna put in the description
so you guys can see it yourself.
She says, I don't know where to start.
As a woman who has lived with alopecia for 28 years,
losing my hair at nine years old
and being teased relentlessly for the way I look -
my heart absolutely broke for Jada Pinkett Smith tonight.
As Chris Rock made a cheap shot,
and made her the butt
of his very unclassy joke about her hair.
After a moment of processing it all,
my first thought was this:
it is never okay to use
someone's appearance as entertainment.
How are we not past this in 2022?
I agree.
And this happens on both sides of the political aisle.
This happens across cultures, across religions.
We laugh at the appearances of other people and it's cruel.
Which I thought for whatever other flaws it had
the original Dumbo, the Disney film
did a really great job of illustrating
just how hurtful this is, right?
This is-- This is not us at our best.
And we can be funny without making fun
of someone's appearance.
Now there's a difference
if it's playful teasing between people who love each other.
And like my wife teases me
about my crooked Owen Wilson nose,
and that doesn't hurt my feelings
because I know she finds it attractive
and charming because she's told me so, right?
And we like-- There's a difference between that
and poking fun of a medical condition
or really any other appearance related thing
on live global television.
And you see it on late night talk shows,
you see it all the time.
We're gonna make fun of people
and that's how we're gonna make our money.
And Will Smith had a point
in his acceptance speech when he said--
- I know to do what we do,
you gotta be able to take abuse.
You gotta be able to have people talk crazy about you.
In this business you gotta be able to have
people disrespecting you
and you gotta smile and you gotta pretend like that's okay.
- So many things have been accepted as normal
that we forget that there are real people
on the other end of that
and I've read some comments
about me on this YouTube channel
and on my other YouTube channel, Cinema Therapy
that have stung because there's a real person
on the other end of your comments, reading this.
And some people have criticized my appearance.
Some people have criticized my intelligence.
Some people have criticized my morality
or my integrity, and it hurts.
You know, it hurts when you're out here trying
to do something good and you get that.
Back to the post,
I never condone assaulting someone,
I honestly think this was taken too far.
I gotta be honest.
And this will shock some of you
because I take a strong stand against toxic masculinity,
against violence, you know, against all sorts of things.
My initial gut reaction was that was awesome.
(laughing)
As a married man,
and maybe as someone who was raised
in a different generation
I thought it was awesome to see
someone stand up for his wife.
Now Will Smith laughed initially at the joke,
let's talk about that.
He's seen laughing and a few seconds later
he's coming up on stage.
People are wondering if, well, if this is a staged joke
except for once Will's in the audience,
cussing out Chris and Chris is responding,
you could tell this isn't staged.
This is very real.
So why would he laugh?
Maybe he thought it was funny
and then he saw that Jada didn't think it was funny
and then it shifted.
And he decided to stand-- You know, stand up for her.
Or maybe he was already laughing from previous jokes.
And when you're--
Like, if you're at a comedy club
and you're laughing from previous jokes
sometimes like the next joke comes
and you start laughing and then you go, haha ooh.
And it may be that that's what happened with him.
Like he had a moment to consider and he realized,
no that didn't sit okay with me.
But as far as-- So my initial reaction
was I thought it was awesome.
And then I sat with it for a while
and I thought I do think it's important
that he stood up for her if she wanted him to,
maybe she didn't want him to.
I do think it's important to stand up
for the people that we love.
And I do think passions were running high
and there's a lot of bumpy history between Will and Jada.
There's a lot of pain there.
And when there's a lot of pain there
and you want your relationship to work
and you wanna make it last,
there's a lot of triggers there.
I don't know what goes on behind closed doors.
I know Will and Jada have been very open
about certain things and so I can respond to some of that.
But the fact is like,
I don't know everything
that was going on through Will's head.
I do know that I believe
that physical violence should be saved
for protecting yourself or protecting a--
Protecting another person from physical attack.
And someone has said, but what about emotional violence?
You know, and I'd actually love to hear
in your comments below,
do you think what will did was toxic masculinity?
And by toxic masculinity, by the way,
I don't mean that masculinity is toxic, far from it.
I'm referring to violence and aggression that is unnecessary
or failure to express emotions
in a healthy and productive way,
which is how some men are socialized to be.
If they're going to be men.
I prefer to call it limiting masculinity.
I think you can be tough and strong
and a protector and a defender,
and you can be tender and compassionate
and caring and loving and nurturing.
And you can be all of those things
whether you're a man or a woman or non-binary,
or, you know whoever.
Do you think it was toxic masculinity
or do you think what he did was the right thing to do?
Because my initial reaction,
as I said was I thought it was awesome.
And the more I sit with it, the more, I'm not sure.
I'm sure it felt great.
And it felt great to watch somebody
put someone in their place
for insulting the other person's wife.
But does that mean that that's the answer?
Will didn't know he was gonna win
but I would've loved to have seen
without a violent outburst earlier
him stand up and during his acceptance speech
pay tribute to his wife and call Chris Rock out
that that wasn't cool,
that would've been awesome.
There's a lot of other ways he could have handled it,
but the fact is like
you don't strategize in a moment like that.
And yeah, he could have recognized he was worked up
and stopped and calmed down,
but he didn't.
So what's gonna in there?
I don't-- Be interested to see whether charges are pressed,
whether the public sides with Will or not.
But back to the post,
we also don't know the entire story behind the scenes
of what they are going through
as she deals with her alopecia -
so I won't speculate why Will did what he did.
And that is true.
We only see the tip of the iceberg
with anybody at any point in time.
We don't see everything else they're carrying.
We don't see everything else that's going on for them.
What I do know is the look on Jada's face,
I've seen it in the mirror a million times,
embarrassed and uncomfortable with the hands
of someone else's judgment and stupidity.
I will be totally honest
that as much as I don't condone what's happened -
a small part of me felt
like someone stood up for us tonight.
We all deal with things differently,
and I hope this is a big eye opener
that society needs to grow up already,
and that we stand up against this type of entertainment
making jokes at someone's expense.
Again, stand up, not through assault, she says.
How can we expect our kids to not tease
and make fun of others when they see us watching it on TV?
And she says, our alopecia community
is still reeling from the loss
of one of our own alopecia kids
from suicide because of teasing.
I wanna insert my own personal experience,
I don't have alopecia, I have rosie cheeks
and depending on-- Like my body fluctuates in weight
and sometimes I'm quote unquote in better shape
and other times I'm not.
And growing up I--
I look back on the pictures
and I don't think I was even an especially overweight kid
but I thought I was.
And other kids saw that as a screw that they could turn.
And they called me Butterball
like after the turkey, butterball turkey.
And they teased me until I cried.
And that wasn't a one time thing
that was years of my elementary school
of kids teasing me about my appearance.
I have stitches on my eyes right here,
so when I smile my eyes bunch up.
I mean, at this age, it's all just smile lines anyway.
But when I was a kid,
there was racial humor directed at me
and they would do this
and they would go, oriental, oriental.
Which first of all is a horrific,
terrible, ugly, racist thing to do.
Which adult me recognizes.
Kid me-- Kid me knew
that they were just treating me differently
and that they were a laugh at my expense.
Adult me, if someone calls me oriental,
I'd be like, that's cool.
I'd be like, I love Asians and I love Asian culture.
But kid me didn't understand any of the--
That component of it, just understood I was being teased
and I would cry and I felt alone.
And I felt like I didn't fit in,
and they saw this as great fun.
Kids do that because,
if you pardon my saying, so kids are stupid.
(laughing)
Their brains are still developing.
They exercise poor judgment.
How sad is it when adults never grow out of that?
And treat each other that way?
And that's not an excuse for kids either
because kids can be kind.
I think tonight was a reminder
that we all need to be kinder to each other,
because we truly never know what someone is going through,
and even behind the fun of jokes
someone's feelings are being hurt,
and there comes a point when someone can't take anymore.
Tonight, I'm proud to be an Alopecian,
I stand beside anyone who feels
like they're different or not good enough.
I stand with you and I with Jada.
Chris Rock's joke was out line,
an apology should be made.
And everyone's saying Will owes Chris the apology
and that's, you know, probably true,
it's technically assault.
And I've heard that Chris went up to the family
and apologized later,
but everyone's focusing on the slap
and calling Will Smith a toxic male.
But of course he got up
and he apologized to the Academy and he apologized--
He didn't exactly apologize to Chris from the stage.
He expressed why he did what he did,
and that doesn't make it right.
And I'm not saying--
Sometimes apologies turn into justifications.
I don't think Will Smith is a bad person.
I think we can debate the rightness
or wrongness of this particular action.
I don't see him as a bad person.
And when he talked about wanting to be a vessel
of light and love, I believed him
and how he talked about how Denzel
pulled him aside after and said,
you know, when you're--
When you're at your highs is when the devil comes for you.
He knew that that's not who he wanted to be, right?
Who he was 15, 20 minutes earlier,
that's not who he wanted to be.
New developments in the couple hours
since I filmed that video.
So Will Smith and Chris Rock
have both issued public apologies.
Felt like I should read them here
because they're actually as far as apologies go,
they're pretty good.
Chris Rock,
as a comedian it can be difficult to understand
which lines are to be crossed
and which ones aren't.
Last night I crossed a line that I shouldn't have
and paid the enormous price of my reputation
as renowned comedian.
Comedy is never about poking fun at
or making light of people
with major ordeals happening in their lives.
Comedy is about using real world circumstances
to create laughter and bring light
to an otherwise dark world.
With that said, I sincerely apologize,
to my friends, Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith
and the rest of the Smith family
for the disrespect and disregard I displayed
that was unfortunately broadcast for the world to see.
I hope that with time forgiveness can come
with this situation and we can all be better
more considerate people in the end.
Pretty good.
I'll back you up on that, Chris.
Will Smith,
violence in all its forms is poisonous and destructive.
My behavior at last night's Academy Awards
was unacceptable and inexcusable.
Jokes at my expense are part of the job
but a joke about Jada's medical condition
was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.
I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris.
I was out of line and I was wrong.
I am embarrassed and my actions
were not indicative of the man I want to be.
There is no place for violence in a world
of love and kindness.
I would also like to apologize
to the Academy, the producers of the show
and all the attendees
and everyone watching around the world.
I would like to apologize
to the Williams family and my King Richard family.
I deeply regret that my behavior has stained
what has been an otherwise
gorgeous journey for all of us.
I'm a work in progress.
Sincerely Will.
I think the debate should continue out
what is, and isn't healthy behavior.
What is, and isn't right in the public square.
But it's good to see both of them own up
because the fact is we're all human.
We all air
and a large measure of who we are
is how we act and react when we have been out of line
and when others have been out of line.
And so I think it's good to have the debate
about the behavior
but I don't think we should be pointing fingers
or hurling judgments at the individuals here.
So my hat's off to both of them.
You might cynically say,
well, of course they're gonna apologize.
It's a PR nightmare.
But I don't know I like those apologies.
What do you think?
I think there's a place to be a defender and a protector.
Not because one is a man,
but because one has the ability
but one has to judge when that is.
And to me, physical violence should only be used
as a response to a physical threat.
That said, I'm not approaching this situation with judgment.
And the fact is in Hollywood
and everywhere else it's far too common
that we poke fun at each other's appearance
or we roast each other or we're rude to each other.
And then it's just accepted
as if the feelings of human beings don't matter.
Playful teasing can happen
between people who love each other.
But if both people don't think it's funny
if only one person thinks it's funny,
then it's not playful teasing,
it's hurtful and apologies should be made.
Amends should be made and behavior should be redirected.
What do you think about what I've said today?
Am I off?
And what do you think about Vanessa's comments?
Do you think she's off? Do you think she's on?
Love to hear what you have to say
about the whole Will Smith, Jada Smith,
Chris Rock, Academy Awards situation.
If you are wrestling with anything
related to this or not you can meet
with a member of my team
for a complimentary 15 minute consultation.
The link is in the description below.
What's going on in the news
that you would like me to respond to?
Get my thoughts on.
Let me know in the comments below.
And how would you deal with someone mocking your appearance
or the appearance of someone you love?
I'd also like to know that.
So until next time, keep shining because we need your light.
And I've got a different video for you
right here, right now
where I dive in deep and give you everything I've got.
We'll see you next time.
Oh, there it is.
There's that video I was telling you about.
You know you want to watch it, so do it.
Bye.