\nHere\u2019s a look at the fallout from last year\u2019s Oscars, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage.\n
The Slap is sure to figure into the Oscars this year, even if the academy would prefer we all move on from the shocking moment on March 27, 2022, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage. The organization has said tonight\u2019s telecast will not dwell on the episode. Then again, it has set up a crisis team to deal with any unexpected developments at the ceremony, proof that the incident continues to cast a long shadow. It will inform what you will \u2014 and won\u2019t \u2014 see at the Dolby Theater tonight.\n
The encounter itself unfolded quickly: Rock, on hand to present best documentary, fired off a series of jokes targeting stars in attendance. After he made a crack about Jada Pinkett Smith\u2019s close-cropped hair, her husband, Will Smith, left his seat in the audience, walked onstage and struck Rock. After sitting down again, Smith yelled at Rock to keep Pinkett Smith\u2019s name out of his mouth. Rock said he would, then quipped, \u201cThat was the greatest night in the history of television.\u201d\n
He was clearly stunned and the incident has reverberated in the months since. Here\u2019s a look at the fallout:\n
Will Smith: The star, who went on to win the best actor Academy Award that night for \u201cKing Richard,\u201d was banned from the Oscars ceremony for 10 years (though he is still eligible to win awards). Tradition calls for the previous year\u2019s acting winners to present statuettes this year, but he won\u2019t be onstage tonight.\n
The ban was imposed after Smith resigned from the academy and issued an apology on social media. He followed that up with a much longer apology a few months later on YouTube aimed at Rock, Rock\u2019s family, Smith\u2019s family and Questlove, who won the documentary prize but was overshadowed by what had just transpired. As for a direct conversation between Smith and Rock, the actor noted he had been told the comedian wasn\u2019t ready to talk.\n
\n
The academy is not Hollywood, and in the industry Smith\u2019s career continues to roll on. In January, it was announced that he was reteaming with Martin Lawrence on another sequel in the \u201cBad Boys\u201d franchise.\n
Chris Rock: In the aftermath of the incident, the comedian said little. At a standup show a few days later, he told a sold-out crowd, \u201cI\u2019m still kind of processing what happened.\u201d Fast-forward nearly a year and Rock was clearly ready to talk on his livestreamed Netflix special Saturday night. Rock laid into Smith, criticizing him for picking on someone much smaller \u2014 \u201cWill Smith is significantly bigger than me. We are not the same size. Will Smith does movies with his shirt off. You\u2019ve never seen me do a movie with my shirt off\u201d \u2014 and relishing any takedown of Smith: \u201cNow I watch \u2018Emancipation,\u2019 just to see him get whupped,\u201d Rock joked. (For a fascinating perspective also delivered via standup comedy, try Marlon Wayans\u2019s new HBO Max special, which is all about the Slap from the point of view of an artist who has known the Smiths and Rock for decades.)\n
Jada Pinkett Smith: The actress rolled her eyes when Rock spoke about her hair, and part of the controversy has focused on the insensitivity of the line given that she has alopecia, a condition involving hair loss. She has made a few comments over the past several months on social media but did not address the joke itself. (In his apology video, Will Smith took care to point out that Pinkett Smith had nothing to do with his decision to hit Rock.) Mainly the actress\u2019s focus was on healing between the two men. On \u201cRed Table Talk,\u201d her Facebook Watch show, she said, \u201cMy deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have the opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile.\u201d\n
The academy: Heavily criticized for doing little that night (officials asked Smith to leave, apparently, and he refused), the organization has issued a few mea culpas for its response, most recently at the nominees\u2019 luncheon last month. \u201cIt was inadequate,\u201d said Janet Yang, the academy president. \u201cWe learned from this that the academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and particularly in times of crisis, we must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively.\u201d\n
How do they plan to do better next time? A crisis team will be stationed at the ceremony, according to a Time magazine interview with the academy chief executive, Bill Kramer, who explained: \u201cWe have a whole crisis team, something we\u2019ve never had before, and many plans in place. We\u2019ve run many scenarios.\u201d\n
\u201cEmancipation\u201d: This slave drama starring Will Smith was expected to be a strong Oscar contender this year \u2014 until the Slap greatly clouded its prospects. Though Smith could still have been nominated despite the ban, academy voters avoided that possibility when they omitted both the star and the film from the nominations.\n
Jimmy Kimmel: The academy C.E.O. said over the summer that the 2023 telecast would not address the Slap, even in joke form. (\u201cWe want to move forward and to have an Oscars that celebrates cinema.\u201d) But the Oscars host, Jimmy Kimmel, doesn\u2019t seem to have gotten the message. His commercial promoting the Oscars includes several references to Rock, a former host himself. And the spot, a spoof of \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d explains that ABC was intent on finding an M.C. \u201cwho\u2019s unflappable \u2014 and unslappable.\u201d Kimmel\u2019s response: \u201cI can\u2019t get slapped, I cry a lot.\u201d\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How the Slap Has Changed the Oscars Here\u2019s a look at the fallout from last year\u2019s Oscars, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage. The Slap is sure to figure into the Oscars this year, even if the academy would prefer we all move on from the shocking moment on March 27, 2022, when Will\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":99637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-99634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/818.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99639,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99634\/revisions\/99639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}