By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Will Smith is taking a deeper dive into his slap of Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, four months after that now-infamous moment took place.
In a six-minute video posted Friday, titled “It’s been a minute…,” Smith answers some of his fans’ most pressing questions about the Oscars slap, which occurred after Rock made a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith’s expense. (Smith shares in the video, though, that his wife “had nothing to do” with his decision to walk on stage and strike Rock, following speculation that Pinkett Smith had urged her husband to address Rock’s joke.)
“There is no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment,” Smith shares to the camera. “There’s no part of me that thinks that’s the optimal way to handle a feeling of disrespect or insults.”
The actor also extends apologies to his own family, Rock’s family, Smith’s fellow nominees for Best Actor and musician Questlove, whose win for Best Documentary Feature took place moments after the slap and was largely overshadowed by the incident. (“I can still see Questlove’s eyes,” Smith recalls. “‘I’m sorry’ really isn’t sufficient.”) And Rock himself receives another apology from Smith — the first came via Instagram one day after the Oscars — while Smith admits that he didn’t apologize to Rock during his Best Actor acceptance speech because he was “fogged out by that point. It’s all fuzzy.”
“Disappointing people is my central trauma. I hate when I let people down,” Smith adds, when asked what he would say to those who looked up to him before the slap. “It hurts me psychologically and emotionally to know I didn’t live up to people’s image and impression of me… I am deeply remorseful, and I’m trying to be remorseful without being ashamed of myself. I’m human. I made a mistake. I’m trying not to think of myself as a piece of s—t.
“I know it was confusing. I know it was shocking,” he continues. “But I promise you, I am deeply devoted and committed to putting light and love and joy into the world. If you hang on, I promise we’ll be able to be friends again.”
Days after the Oscars, Smith announced his resignation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Its Board of Governors later banned Smith from all Academy events, including the annual presentation of the Oscars, for 10 years.
“This action we are taking today in response to Will Smith’s behavior is a step toward a larger goal of protecting the safety of our performers and guests, and restoring trust in the Academy,” the Board’s statement read at the time. “We also hope this can begin a time of healing and restoration for all involved and impacted.”
Watch Smith’s full apology video above.
Why give this man attention and cover this? POS
Because his agent or publicist called in a favor as they are desperate for their cut of Smith’s future earnings, so it’s in their best interest to try to salvage his career, regardless of the fact that Smith’s actions were criminal.
Chris Rock’s continued silence is driving the desperation in the Smith camp. If it’s Rock’s strategy, it’s brilliant because the longer he remains silent, the longer Smith’s career recovery will take to begin. Smith is desperate and Rock is in control.
Chris Rock has no reason to talk to him right now. This put lots of money inhis bank account. They raised the ticket prices for his shows. Netflix is going to give him even more for his next special where he talks about this incident. He and Dave Chappelle are making lots of money talking about being attacked on stage. I really don’t blame Chris Rock for his stance on all of this. He’s making a business decision. And also we really don’t know what’s going on we just know what’s being presented to us. It’s entirely possible that both men have talked Iand worked out a strategy whereby both of them can monetize the entire situation. Smith is an award-winning actor and Rock is an award-winning comedian with excellent timing. They can milk this. We would never know if they had made up. As the general public all we can do please get on with our lives
Too little, too late. Also, am I the only one that finds what he screamed back at Chris Rock after he walked away more scary than the slap?
I agree. The slap was completely uncalled for but the cursing was vulgar and unacceptable. Especially at a formal awards show.
Agreed.
I just wanna say that I somehow feel that he is hurting. I know that is all of course the result of hourlong preparations and rehearsals and yeah, he is a good actor..but still, I think he got the right tone.
But it will forever stuck with his history, his career, with the Oscars and stuff, so he will still be punished enough living through it again and again in each interview, in it press-tour of any project..so, actions have consequences..but time will tell, if people will be reminding his behaviour on that particular day of if they will be ready to forgive and move on..I guess it’s not in his hands anymore..
I agree he’s hurting… but that’s what alarms me. The language he uses referring to himself as (not) “a piece of s***” and saying to hang on for us to be friends again… In spite of how many people dislike this man right now I get the feeling he dislikes himself the most. To self-sabotage so spectacularly at his moment of victory, and now to wallow publicly in self-flagellation, I just think the place he needs to bring love right now is to himself. We don’t need these apologies and promises. I hope he can find a place of quiet humility and grace to heal.
He needs to get away from Jada and never look back before he can possibly even start to heal.
No doubt the beginning of the PR comeback tour.
What WS did was absolutely not an appropriate action under any situation in my opinion. But, we as the general public will never know the true reason for his actions regardless of what is being said by WS or his family. WS is more than likely the only to know why he reacted in such a fashion and even being a public figure doesn’t have to disclose a reason for his actions. Never would have expected WS to have acted as he did, but it occurred and cannot be cut and put on the screening room floor. We all act out of normal personas from time to time, but as we are not in the lime light, are not judged by the court of public opinion. I am not in any way upholding what WS did at the time of the incident or how he has responded prior as this is a matter that needs to be thrashed out between the individuals involved for a true resolution.
I think we all need to move on. I personally don’t care about the incident, it’s over and done and Smith is suffering the consequences. I don’t put this in the same column as Weinstein, who is someone who truly did something horrendous. I’m not interested in hearing people just constantly coming online and telling us how horrible Smith was, that’s between him and Rock.
And the more people focus on Smith, the more Rock gets away with what he did to lead to this, which was also not okay and yet he skates because everyone’s attention is on Smith and they can’t say Rock was also wrong because that might sound like supporting Smith – and of course, because society, Rock actually benefits from it as he derives profit from being the victim.
It’s never been between just him and Chris! He did it on an international stage on live Tv, in a room full of his peers. Yes, Will needs to move on & away from the public eye. Over him and his entire family!
This video does not change my mind about Mr. Smith. He has opened the door for people to come on stage during an a comedian’s set and assault them. I have heard that it has happened already to a few comedians. In my opinion, he is looking to get back to working, since he has lost some work for his actions at the Oscar presentation.
Precisely my feelings. I’m sure he can survive without the work but it is the precedent he set.
Lol he didn’t lose any work. All his jobs remain. Name 1 job thay sacked him? It must be nice living in your world where no one can ever make a mistake and if they do make a mistake and later apologize, we still castigate and isolate them. You must be a perfect angel walking on earth.
We are aware he is a human being who made a mistake. We are also aware he is insincere in every second of how insincere he is. Will Smith isn’t remorseful for what he did, he’s only sorry it hurt his career.
That’s the difference.
Please y’all act like this is new. Comedians been heckled and assaulted on stage at comedy shows and clubs for years way before this incident. You and mainstream media along with certain celebrities need to stop passing judgement . It’s been other celebs done worse y’all still support.
I hope the world can move on from this. People make mistakes every day and thankfully no one died from this incident. No one on this earth is perfect.
Hopefully, you are equally supportive of Roseanne?
Consequences and the world moving on are not mutually exclusive.
Rent must be due.
Either that or his uppity, entitled, talentless children must need money.
What makes them uppity?
BooHoo, you are an ignorant racist and the language in your comment shines a light on that fact. I hate what WS did. Plus I agree that the worst part of of the whole incident was WS swagger while walking off the stage. Then he continues a brutish verbal assault on Rock after his physical assault. I believe it was the aftermath
that was the true reflection of his dark, self entitled character. But with that said, you referring to him or his children as uppidity, is also true reflection of your even darker and malevolent character. You would NEVER have referred to a white person as uppity. That is a word reserved for people of color by racists like you, toward someone they feel does not know there place…based on their repugnant sense of white privledge. Therefore, your opinion does not come from an honest assessment of the incident but was driven by your stupidity, hatred and twisted ideals.
The “that’s how we do it” tweet from Jaden says just as much about their family values as the original incident.
Uppity or arrogance, isn’t exclusive to any race or gender.
Pipe down Nina. His children are little a holes. You should ask Santa for a dictionary this Christmas.
Both his kids with Jada are entitled weird psychos He owes the public an apology for subjecting us to those nutjobs.
I will say, everybody makes mistakes in life. Everybody has or will do something in their lifetime that at the moment they felt like that was the right thing to do or just didn’t think before they acted so I will say that while he will have to deal with this and have this be forever a part of his image, this one moment should not forever define him.
That said, I would like to know WHY he did what he did. WHAT in that moment made him think getting up and slapping Chris Rock in the face was the right idea and not say walking up there and just politely saying something along the lines of “that’s too far, that’s not right”. Why was slapping him the right thing to do to him?
I guess his mistake was not to shoot children with an assault weapon while White. We’d be hearing on Fox News how all his neighbours thought he was always the kindest neighbour and then specialists tell us we have no gun violence problem, we just need to be more compassionate about people’s mental health. *Sigh* Will Smith was wrong. Yes. But it was a slap. Just that. Let’s all stop acting like he gunned Chris Rock down.
Excusing one act of violence because it wasn’t as bad as another act is like telling a woman that you’re sorry she was sexually assaulted but at least she wasn’t murdered so everything is just fine and dandy. Actions have consequences. Excusing one bad act just opens the door for excusing all bad acts because nothing is as bad as someone suffering more, only it does nothing to hold people accountable. It’s the same logic for telling people with mental health issues that they should be fine because other people are hurting more.
Acting as if all bad acts are equal has no logic. If I fart in an elevator or knife you, are they the same? How can you try to compare the slap to sexual assault? He has been punished. Banned from the event for 10 years. Had projects cancelled or paused. How much more he needs to be held accountable? A guy disrespected his wife he slapped him. That was wrong. He should just have said what he said, not escalated to a slap. I agree. But it was a slap Rock shrugged off and moved on from in the same minute. We can move on now.
JUST GO AWAY. Take your female and offspring and vanish.
I agree!!
It’s crazy, a human made a public mistake. Took time to process his actions and what lead him to do it, and our response is it’s all staged it’s all fake. Anyone who’s snapped knows what happened here. I for one would be in jail (racist college roommate and months of torture) if not for the timing of one of the best friends a person could ever have. The difference is his was public. If you’re not interested in seeing someone actually work through ish don’t click it move on
Dropping your drawers is a public mistake. Sneezing on the cake is a public mistake. He assaulted someone. That’s a crime.
Look up the word mistake. It isn’t “funny oopsie”.
Nothing in the definition of mistake suggests crime.. It’s an error in judgement: Will went way past that.
If Chris Rock, the victim, wanted, he could have pressed charges; he didn’t. He wasn’t arrested, tried or convicted. Mob rule isn’t how we handle crime in the judicial system. A crime can also be a mistake. People commit crimes and make mistakes and move on. Martha Stewart did jail time. Will Smith slapped someone. Big deal. My parents are criminals, then. Got slapped a bunch. I don’t slap children. But i think f that as parents mistakes my father and mother made. Not crimes.
All you truly perfect people who have never done anything wrong can sit this one out. The rest of us acknowledge that someone with a lenghty track record of being kind, professional and nice deserves a break when they make a mistake. He assaulted Chris. It was violent and it was wrong. But he apologized. So either choose to stop watching his films or move on. Looking to get the rest of the world to cancel him is judgemental and immature.
Oh please, they cancelled JD and he was proven not guilty by that shrew of a woman. Now this video from Will Smith how many weeks /months later? This could have been done right away, and no, being not perfect myself doesn’t negate his or anyone else’s beheaviour that’s a cop out.
I don’t want to watch the video, but does anyone know if Mr. Smith has actually called Mr. Rock to personally apologize? Not through video or posts, or thru “their people”, but an actual phone call? To me, there is no substitute for that. Don’t want to hold anything against Mr. Smith, but doubt I will ever be able to see him in the same light as before. I can’t un-see what I saw. Sad all around.
If you don’t want to watch the video, why are you wasting your time and energy commenting about it? Move along.
Gadeal is not commenting on the video at all, they certainly have the right to comment on Smith’s actions and a meaningful apology.
Was Gadeal the person he slapped?
Rude! It’s why I rarely post. So many snarky comments. If you don’t know the answer to my question, say so
And move on. Geez.
Why are people so insulting on this site? If you don’t know the answer to a simple question, say so. Then move along yourself. Be kind!
They are internet trolls. I’ve had some really bizarre and/or crude responses to questions or comments that I have posted, but I don’t worry about it. Trolls don’t bother me.
I am amused by the double standard that people have when it comes to what celebrities they will forgive for mistakes and which celebrities must be cancelled immediately and forever.
I hope Will learns from his mistake and becomes a better person, but he can’t control the response of fans or the consequences of his actions.
Yes, I believe Smith has privately apologized to Rock, not long after the incident. Though what is it to you? It sounds you would not like him either way.
Chris Rock will not take Will’s calls and he certainly won’t talk to Will yet.
Don’t know where you think you got your information but it is wrong. Chris realizes Hollywood is fake, Will is fake and he’s making as much money off this as he can milk. Which is exactly what he should do. That entire audience coddling that deranged lunatic, was just gross. The only one I didn’t lose respect for was Wanda Sykes and Anthony Hopkins who both shaded Will from the beginning. Anthony was done in a very British way so it was subtle unless you’re familiar with British insults, humor. Etc
you are a POS and he should be ashamed of himself I do not blame Chris Rock for not talking to him. He did laugh until Jada rolled her eyes at him. Now he has gone to lying.
I still think his relationship with his wife is toxic. Notice how he apologizes to her briefly and said her reaction had nothing to do with it…I don’t know. Good luck with that.
BOO HOO!😭 😆 He lost all my respect. I get that he was “hurt” but there WAS a time and place to confront CR. That was COMMERCIAL BREAK! Overall I’m still waiting for Chris Rock’s TRUE feelings about it! Will Smith should just shut the hell up and go away…along with Jada! Pretty much forgot about all this til NOW.
I agree. Will and his family are AHs. Also, it took him months to shoot and release this. Chris Rock has 50 IQ points on Smith because Rock knows, by not addressing the issue publicly, the longer Smith is in the dog house. Rock is in control to a certain extent with regard to how will Smith’s career recover, or if it will.
2016 joke about Jada boycotting the Oscars by Chris Rock was hilarious as he made fun not just of her, but of himself because he knows he’s not getting into Rhianna’s panties. It was honestly funny & acting-wise Jada’s done nothing memorable and isn’t really talented as an actress.
Smith is a mediocre talent w/decent publicists who can’t get him away from a nightmare of his own doing in 2022. Why? Because he originally half-way chuckled at the joke, then glanced over at Jada, and only then acted like an abusive AH to Chris rock. He should have been charged with assault. He committed assault. He apologized in his Oscar speech to others but not Chris Rock. Then he went off to dance to his own music at the afterparties because he’s an egomaniac who feels consequences to actions don’t apply to him. The next morning, he realized they did, and Jada tried to capitalize it on her stupid podcast/show and it didn’t fly. Will then went overseas for meditation, etc… because he was shocked by how much heat he took.
He finally posts this video because his career is now in tatters because, let’s be real, he’s so thin skinned, he committed assault on film because he felt entitled to do so. In the video, he lies about not reacting to Jada’s reaction. Chris Rock is a smart guy who wants nothing to do with Will because Rock knows, his silence does more to set back Will’s Hollyweird image recovery, than speaking out. Smith is now desperate to save his career. His wife and kids have zero talent, so he’s the only one with earning potential, which is basically cut off at the knees. He’s an AH and again, should have been charged.
Generally speaking, by ‘swinging first’ a person, in this case Will Smith, potentially places himself in an unanticipated psychological disadvantage — one favoring the combatant who chooses to patiently wait for his opponent to take the first swing, perhaps even without the fist necessarily connecting.
Just having the combatant swing at him before he’d even given his challenger a physical justification for doing so seemed to instantly create a combined psychological and physical imperative within to react to that swung fist with justified anger. In fact, such testosterone-prone behavior may be reflected in the typically male (perhaps unconsciously strategic) invitation for one’s foe to ‘go ahead and lay one on me,’ while tapping one’s own chin with his forefinger.
Yet, from my experience, it’s a theoretical advantage not widely recognized by both the regular scrapper mindset nor general society. Instead of the commonly expected advantage of an opponent-stunning first blow, the hit only triggers an infuriated response earning the instigator two-or-more-fold returned-payment hard hits. It brings to mind an analogous scenario in which a chess player recklessly plays white by rashly forcefully moving his pawn first in foolish anticipation that doing so will indeed stupefy his adversary.
Maybe it’s an evolutionary instinct ingrained upon the human male psyche—one preventing us from inadvertently killing off our own species by way of an essentially gratuitous instigation of deadly violence in bulk, which also results in a lack of semen providers to maintain our race.
Will Smith, no one cares what you have to say. It was totally unnecessary and rude what you did and kept repeating afterwards. Shame on you.
Unbelievable, such a crappy response from him! Not genuine, took way too long and seems like he felt pressured to do it rather than actually feeling remorseful. Shame on you Will Smith, you have become such an entitled brat who acts above everyone else…would’ve been better to stay silent dude!!
Agree 💯
I think what he did was completely uncalled for. I also think he needs some mental health help. Yes, he should be held accountable. But, I also hate the cancel culture. Everyone makes stupid mistakes. Granted, not everyone makes that large of a mistake on live, national television. But, everyone does stupid stuff. I think he needs to accept the consequences, but he should also be allowed to apologize and to even be believed in his apology. Just because he behaved abhorrently doesn’t mean he can’t feel guilt over it. I hope he learns from this mistake. To err is human, to forgive divine. It’s hard not to judge others. But, I try to see that the human may be going through something and need a teensy bit of grace. I’d hate to see something tragic happen, like Will Smith taking his own life due to the underlying mental health struggles he clearly has. I hope he gets the help he needs. I believe his apology is sincere. I also believe he should have consequences. It is possible to believe both.
Couple of thoughts. Will Smith has been vastly underrated and should have won an Oscar for Ali years ago. He and many other African American artists faced and overcame obstacles not encountered by their white colleagues. He has also made a boatload of money for a boatload of people (not just himself) including studios, and their execs, agents, fellow actors, producers, film and tv crews, stockholders of movie cos and advertisers etc. Still…I think he needs to give us in the public a bit more time to recover or better repress the memories from that fateful evening. Just live your life Will for a while and let us do the same. Good and better health to you.
Too soon. Bye
Lol. Yep.