Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in the face while the comedian was onstage at the 2022 Academy Awards — after joking about the actor’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
The startling moment occurred as Rock was presenting the nominees for best documentary, during which he took aim at Pinkett Smith for sporting a new bald-headed look.
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“Jada, I love you, ‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it,” Rock said, prompting laughs from the audience. Smith initially appeared to laugh at the joke before turning sour. Suddenly, the King Richard star was seen walking toward Rock onstage and then slapping him in the face. Censors suddenly turned on for U.S. broadcasts, though other countries were slower to turn off the sound.
In the uncensored video, Smith could be heard shouting at Rock, once back in his seat, to “keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth.”
“Wow, Will Smith just smacked the s*** out of me,” Rock then said before defending his dig as “just a ‘G.I. Jane’ joke.”
Smith appeared dissatisfied with Rock’s response, telling him again, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth,” leading to audible gasps and then silence from the audience.
Pinkett Smith, who has been married to her Oscar-nominated husband since 1997, has been vocal about her struggles with alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss.
Viewers and internet commentators alike immediately began speculating whether the slap was scripted, yet the immediate censoring of the moment made many think it was unplanned. Adding fuel to the theory that the moment was for show, Smith posted a video of him and his wife to TikTok just hours before the ceremony with the caption, “Got all dressed up to choose chaos.”
In the next segment of the program, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs walked onstage to introduce the stars of The Godfather and attempted to make light of the moment, saying, “I did not know that this year was going to be the most exciting Oscars ever,” to laughs from the visibly confused crowd. The camera later turned to Smith, who laughed as Combs said, “OK, Will and Chris, we’re going to solve that like family at the Gold party, but right now, we’re moving on with love.”
Shortly after the altercation, video surfaced on Twitter of Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry pulling Smith aside during a commercial break. It was unclear what the two actor-directors told Smith at the time, as videos of their conversation were taken from afar. He was also seen being embraced by Bradley Cooper. Smith revealed what Washington said to him shortly after, though, when he won the best actor trophy for his role in King Richard, which tells the story of the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams.
“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,” a tearful Smith said at the start of his acceptance speech. “I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people. 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, you gotta be able to have people disrespecting you, and you have to smile and pretend like that’s OK.”
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It was then that he addressed what Washington told him during the programming break, revealing, “Denzel said to me, ‘At your highest moment, be careful — that’s when the devil comes for you.’”
“I want to apologize to the academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees,” he continued. “This is a beautiful moment, and I’m not crying for winning an award — it’s not about winning an award for me, it’s about being able to shine a light on all of the people.”
He ended his speech thanking the cast and crew of the film, which earned him his first-ever Oscar, as well as the Williams family and his own family, before saying, “I hope the academy invites me back. Thank you.”
