Over two years ago, Will Smith received considerable attention after he slapped Chris Rock on stage at the 94th Academy Awards. Smith was subsequently punished by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a 10-year ban from its events. In the aftermath, rumors swirled around the actor’s career prospects, but he’s since bounced back. Smith isn’t forgetting that time in his life, though, as he recently reflected on the “most painful” aspect of the slap. Along with that, he also explained what he learned from the situation.
The King Richard star has been busy as of late, promoting his new music. While doing that, he recently made a stop at San Diego’s Observatory North Park theater. It was during that show that the A-lister discussed a number of topics (and distanced himself from the Diddy memes that have been making the rounds). Later, as shared by @SKTheKingYT on X, the Bad Boys star got candid about the slap’s aftermath and explained how he processed the incident:
After the Oscars, I was kinda – y’all heard about that? … I kooked out. I kooked out for a minute, but I’m back. … I took a couple of years, you know, to really look at who I am, who I want to be. And, all of a sudden, about six months ago, music started coming out of me again like, I had so many new ideas, so many things I wanted to say. And it was like – I was trying to figure out how to get it out and what’s the artform and music and poetry was like the only way that I could express even the contradicting things I was feeling in my heart.
Will Smith slapped Chris Rock after the comic made a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Rock made a quip about Pinkett Smith’s baldness, which is due to alopecia areata, leading Smith to smack the comedian and later yell expletives at him. Later on, the Smith apologized to Rock in a video, while Rock himself blasted both of the Smiths in his 2023 Netflix comedy special, Selective Outrage. A number of other comedians, including Jim Careey Wanda Sykes and Steve Harvey, also chastised Smith for his actions.
The 56-year-old father of three went on to share more thoughts on the slap, at which point he revealed that the “most painful” part of it was that he “responded to hate with hate.” Nevertheless, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star also shared that he had an epiphany while thinking over the televised moment later:
In terms of the Oscars, the thing that was most painful for me is I responded to hate with hate, and that never works. That never ever works. The amount of other people that got hurt, you know? And one of the ideas that came through is – I was really just running it over and over in my mind – one of the things that landed is everybody’s going through something. Every single person is having a hard time with life.
Will Smith’s career has remained intact since his confrontation with Chris Rock at the Oscars. He starred in the moderately reviewed period piece Emancipation in late 2022, and 2024 has proven to be a major year for him, thanks in great part to the box office hit Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Smith also has upcoming movies in Brilliance and fellow sci-fi flick Resistor. On top of that, the star is set to return for an I Am Legend sequel, which will co-star Michael B. Jordan.
The comments that the Academy Award winner shared during his recent show seem to indicate that he’s been working on himself since the slap. Based on his sentiments, one gets the feeling that he’ll opt to hold onto the empathy-related lesson he learned moving forward.
Anyone who’d like to check out Will Smith’s latest film can stream Bad Boys: Ride or Die now using a Netflix subscription.
