Why did Will Smith slap Chris Rock at the Oscars?

[Hero1]

Will Smith seems a little lost at the moment... at the end of Will's book he starts jumping out of helicoptors on dangerous bunjee jumps... starts doing halluigenic drugs and now he is assaulting people on live TV.. Will seems very lost right now... I hope he gets some help. 

[gosia]

What on earth happened in there?

[Lerkot]

Bit out of balance? Obviously.

But having thought about this... if my (highly hypothetical..) wife has a medical condition she is sensitive about and some clown makes a joke about it in front of millions of people, it is sort of your duty as the husband to go slap that worn out comedian in the face. Was it clever? Not particularly... but entirely understandable. This slap was a better decision than his last dozen movies or so. 

[rawad_m]

I haven't really posted here for years, mainly because of Will and Jada's oversharing of their personal life, I think maybe Will should just completely quit hollywood and just make music every few years, but what do i know..

[DefCEM]

I haven’t been online here in ages and just had to come and share my feelings.

I am really shocked and disappointed of his behavior and think that this is unacceptable. He didn’t even apologize to Chris at his speech.

As a long time JJFP fan I must say, that the Fresh Prince I used to like and watch and listen to is no more. Will totally lost his sense of responsibility as an artist.. what it means to be a role model. He shouldn’t have made his private life so public in the first place. All that red table talk and stuff totally screwed him up. The showbiz is not the place to elaborate and therapy your life. 

my respect for him is on a low point and honestly he is more and more becoming an example on how NOT to do things in life.

 

What a shame. I won’t support him anymore and will stick with his old stuff. But nonetheless I hope he’ll get out of this mess…

[Lerkot]

28 minutes ago, DefCEM said:

I haven’t been online here in ages and just had to come and share my feelings.

I am really shocked and disappointed of his behavior and think that this is unacceptable. He didn’t even apologize to Chris at his speech.

As a long time JJFP fan I must say, that the Fresh Prince I used to like and watch and listen to is no more. Will totally lost his sense of responsibility as an artist.. what it means to be a role model. He shouldn’t have made his private life so public in the first place. All that red table talk and stuff totally screwed him up. The showbiz is not the place to elaborate and therapy your life. 

my respect for him is on a low point and honestly he is more and more becoming an example on how NOT to do things in life.

 

What a shame. I won’t support him anymore and will stick with his old stuff. But nonetheless I hope he’ll get out of this mess…

I disagree. Chris Rock made a joke about a medical decision that Jada might be sensitive about and Will showed empathy.

Chris Rock deserved to be slapped. If anything, this made me regain some respect for him. As long as I dont have to watch any of his movies, I wish him the best.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Lerkot

[DefCEM]

This could’ve been handled more professionally f.e backstage

This was immature and impulsive. 

[fan 4ever]

Glad to see some old names on this forum again. Too bad it took Will bitchslapping Chris Rock to get y'all back here! :-)

I'm glad he finally won his Oscar. We all know that he deserves that Oscar. King Richard is a great movie and Will was amazing in it. It's just messed up that people will always remember him slapping Chris Rock. The thing is, if he didn't have this nice guy image all the time people wouldn't be so shocked about it. I'm not defending his actions, violence is never a good idea, but I guess he just lost it. He has been taking a lot of **** lately (might be his own fault because he's sharing everything with people these days) but there's just as much a guy can take. Should he have talked to Chris privately after the show? Maybe. Should he have mentioned it during his speech? Maybe. Should he have slapped him on one of the biggest stages in the word? NO! 

We can't turn back time, it happened. Just wondering if he will make a statement about it. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by fan 4ever

[Hero1]

I I'm more with Def Cem on this. I will always be a JJFP fan but I really don't like justifying violence with love or protection. It just wasn't acceptable. I thought Chris Rock handled himself pretty unbelievably after the incident. You can hear my full thoughts on why I thought it happened on the podcast here:

 

 

[gosia]

We all have our limits. He should have waited for the commercial break though

[JumpinJack AJ]

I don't condone violence. It tarnished the evening and his moment. 

Here's what has been swirling around my head for the past 12 hours. 

There's multiple ways to look at this.  Multiple truths co-exist, and that's where things clash and people will take their sides. 

Chris Rock's joke wasn't brilliant, and at face value, wasn't the kind that you'd think would overly offend someone.   Will and Chris have seemed cool, going back to the 90's. You can find pictures of them at various events greeting each other.  At the same time, in 2016, he kind of went at Jada and Will when they choose not to go to the 2016 Oscars due to the lack of diversity in who was nominated.  Is there an ongoing issue there?  I doubt comics every really do this, but was it a situation where he should have checked with them about making the joke first.  Chris definitely didn't seem to think it was going to be a deep dig. As Will was walking to the stage, Chris was giggling like some improv between them was about to jump off.  It goes without saying that Will could have done worse.  This was a warming slap.  Chris handled it as well as you could expect, and better than most of us probably expected. I'm glad he's not pressing charges. 

Will and Jada. For years they were a power couple. People used them as the golden standard.  In recent years, we've seen a change.  We jump to conclusion on this, when a lot of time they've been cryptic about things.  We know they were separated for awhile and what went down. From personal experience, that is hard to process, but it can be done. It's rare, but it can be done.  Different relationships operate different ways, and in most cases, that's fine.  Who are any of us to really judge?  They seem really into each other lately. Let's hope that's true and that things get better.

The other side of that is that maybe they aren't.  Will has often said that his greatest failure was his first marriage ending.   He grew up in a household where he watched his own parents have issue.  That has clearly impacted his life.  Will said he would have stayed in his first marriage, no matter how bad it got, just to keep it together, mostly for Trey.  I think he's carried that to this marriage.  If things are in fact bad, toxic, unhealthy, it seems that he'll stay with it. While I'm not for divorce on a general level, I'm certainly for it if it means you know that it simply will not work and one or both people are miserable. Is that the answer. Certainly none of us know or have the right to have an opinion that's relevant. 

I don't think that Chris' joke was intended to be malicious. I don't think it was specific to Jada dealing with alopecia.  My thoughts are that Will and Jada should have recognized that.  That being said, I could see where this could be a sensitive topic for her and something that bothers her on a daily basis.  To be honest, I would have liked her to have gone up there and said something, if that's the case.  But then what would the pathetic internet trolls say?  Will actually appears to laugh at the joke at first.  I can only assume that he saw that Jada took the joke deeper than it was intended to be, which triggered something in him. If he was going to react in a way for all to see, addressing him from his seat was a better idea.  They've been in teh industry too long for something like that to REALLY get to them.  Smacking Chris on life TV wasn't the answer.  At the same time, you have many people who are like "don't talk about a man's wife/family...Chris had it coming" or women praising that he stood up for his wife.

I think it goes without saying that Will tainted the evening.  Those attending. Those watching it.  It just wasn't a good look.  He has spent the last 20 years trying to win an Oscar. He made it his goal, and while only a few of the movies he did were going to position him for that, he studied and worked toward it militantly. He achieved a high moment and a low moment all in the same evening.  The two will forever be associated with each other, and he has to deal with that.  He earned it and thank God he won it.  Could you imagine if he hadn't?  I think his thank you speech served as a somewhat redeemable moment. 

I don't judge people who isolated incidents. The Fresh Prince is my favorite emcee. Will Smith's movies and other content are generally things I love and enjoy over and over again.  This isn't something that ruins that for me.  There are many people who are not loyal fans who will abandon him over this, at least for a time, which is perfectly understandable.  They aren't invested the way most of us are. For him to act like that and say the f-word goes against much of what he stands for, so I'm sure he's going to wrestle with that shame for a minute.  Jeff recently said how Will is always the first one to admit when he was wrong, so I have no doubts that he'll be processing this moment. 

Denzel's words. Tyler Perry's support. Bradley Cooper's support. I think these things were important. That commercial break footage shows that Will was upset by the moment.  One has to say to themselves... "You wanted to be in this position for so long. What the hell were you thinking when you got out of your seat and slapped a man on life television?"  In recent years we talk about how men's mental health is overlooked and neglected.  Will isn't Kanye West crazy with constant questionable behavior, but he must be wrestling with something to have been brought to this point. 

What's next? I don't think bungee jumping and jumping out of helicopters is strange behavior.  He's getting older and wants to experience things in this life before he's "too old".  He has the means to do it. I'd probably be doing a lot of the same things if my income allowed.  His actions last night and the hallucinogenic drugs are very much against the Will we know and love. My hopes are that he feels the same an takes inventory of his life.  I feel like he doesn't have the support system that he used to have. I think there are a lot things that he got right in his past that he seems distant from.  And lets be real, virtually everyone who loves Will loves him for whatever they liked about him when they first were introduced to him.  Will Smith doesn't really have "new fans".  We're all old fans, whether is be from Hip-Hop, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or his movies up through the mid-2000's. I think this moment serves a purpose and that he knows that. You need moments like this to have a real comeback, which feels funny to say since he just won the Oscar. 

In the end, it's okay to respect him more for standing up for his wife/marriage/family or respecting him less for smacking Chris. It's also okay to change your mind.  It's also okay to let Will's future actions change your mind. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by JumpinJack AJ

[thePrince]

Well, if nothing else, it’s brought us all back together again!  I remember when I first joined the board over 20 years ago, Ali was being released.  On the old Sony willsmith.net BBS there was a lot of hype amongst the Willennium-era fans that the role could land Will Smith his first Oscar.  Of course it wasn’t to be, and nor were various future film roles that seemed sometimes almost deliberately chosen by WS to try and achieve his desired yet elusive Oscar success.  In the end I (and probably most of you) got a bit bored of that endless pursuit.  The irony, then, is that something that WS has worked fairly relentlessly for over 20 years or more to obtain - and which he should now be able to consider one of the greatest achievements of his life - will now forever be tainted in his mind and ours by the Chris Rock debacle.  And he had his mother and other friends/family watching the whole spectacle from home as he came to pieces before them in the most public of environments.  I don’t entirely know what I feel about the incident - I don’t necessarily disrespect it, but it’s confusing to process, which leads me to wonder if there’s not some sort of recent undercurrent between the two that we are unaware of.  What is clear though are the following points.  Chris was completely wrong to make these insensitive remarks about WS’s wife and her health, and he should never have made them before the world on that stage.  WS’s temper flashed and I’ll bet he didn’t entirely know what he’d done until after he did it.  Perhaps his ability to handle such situations is changing with age.  He is entirely right to stand up for her, but he is entirely wrong to do it in the manner that he did.  I’m sad for him because what should have been one of the true high points of his career will now forever be connected to an ugly low.  He will have to live with that.  It’s one thing to defend your family, but he should left the public swinging behind in the Ali days, 20 years ago. And Jaden’s “And that’s how we do it” Twitter remark isn’t exactly a good look for the family either.

Edited March 28, 2022 by thePrince

[bigted]

will should've publically slapped eminem 20 years ago, no more mr nice guy haha, but seriously chris rock was out of line, he deserves some criticism too, will shouldn't melted down in the public but you can't mess with mama

[Robert Nagel]

"bob" here (haven't gone by that in a long, long time) - couldn't figure out my password from when I joined as a 17/18 year old, now as a 34 married father of one (with another on the way)....

I will say I'm heartened by the statements above - I think anyone wouldn't be surprised if a fan forum found a way to justify Will's actions, but I see a lot of wisdom in Hero1 and AJ's comments. (What else would I expect!)

I was just gutted by Will's actions. If he really wanted to make an impression on the right note, for the right reason, he would have left after that joke. It's easy for me to say "Oh, just let it go, and move on." His absence for an acceptance speech would have spoke louder than any sound of a smack or yelling obscenities from the crowd afterwards. He should have learned from his younger self when he didn't do the grammy's and won the first ever rap grammy.

Violence, demonstrations of might, belief you can take things into your own hands - all are hallmarks of lesser men, not representations of true honor.

 

 

[JumpinJack AJ]

The lyrics from "I Wish I Made That" definitely haven't aged well as of last night.

"Whoop somebody ass, taking my boot out

right on TV, so all y'all can see me

Just ignorant, attacking, acting rough..."

 

A friend in the music industry made a since-deleted comment about how the movie industry pushes violence and explicit language in their projects. Movie goes eat it up. Now some want to be critical of a slap.