It’s been months but the events of this year’s Oscar night are still being discussed. The slap heard ‘round the world, when Will Smith struck Chris Rock, hasn’t gone away yet and isn’t likely to fade from conversation anytime soon. And while Wanda Sykes, who co-hosted the show that night, seems to be indicating that she’s unlikely to host the show again, it doesn’t actually sound like the slap is much of a reason why.
Wanda Sykes has not been shy about letting her opinions about the slap incident known. Sykes has previously stated that she was “traumatized” by the whole affair. However, in a recent appearance on Live with Kelly and Ryan, the comedian explained that while she was honored to host the show once, she’s now done it, and doesn’t feel much need to do it again. Sykes explained…
Oh, hell no. I shouldn't say it like that. You know what, it was an amazing honor and I think it's something that you want to do. You do it once. I don't know if I would want to do it again. It's a huge job, and it took a lot of people to clean me up.
It may be bad news for the Oscars that Wanda Sykes isn’t that willing to come back. Getting a host for the Oscars has been such a chore in the past that the show went a couple years without a host at all before this year’s show where Sykes was joined by co-hosts Amy Schumer and Regina Hall. The implication from Sykes that this would all likely still be the case, even if Will Smith, who won the award for Best Actor that night hadn’t slapped a presenter in the face. It was a moment that got the world talking, as none of us could believe we’d actually seen it. Some people initially thought it was part of the show. When it became clear that wasn’t the case, things got very uncomfortable.
While some celebrities, like Tyler Perry, have at least tried to understand things from Will Smith’s perspective, the general consensus is that Smith’s actions were the most in the wrong. Smith was eventually barred from attending the Oscars by the Academy, but Sykes has said before that she doesn’t think Smith should have been allowed to continue to attend that show, and she’s still surprised the show just went on. She continued…
It was just like, what is going happening? Shocking. I couldn’t believe it, shocked. And then it was like ‘Ok so everyone’s just gonna sit here?’ The show just kept going on. And I’d look behind the curtain like ‘He’s still sitting here?’
Assuming that somebody does host the Oscars next year, you can be sure they will make some jokes about people getting slapped on stage, if only as a way to address the topic that everybody in the room will probably still be thinking about.
