*Will Smith extends his mea culpa tour after his infamous Oscar slap during the 94th Academy Awards telecast on Mar. 27, 2022, by appearing on the “Daily Show” with Trevor Noah.
The embattled star took home the Oscar for his portrayal of Richard Williams in “King Richard” and apologized ad nauseam in the aftermath of the ordeal. He discussed the issues he was dealing with on one of the biggest nights of his career when he physically assaulted comedian Chris Rock while promoting his newest historical drama, “Emancipation.”
“I have been away,” Will Smith said, lightening the crowd’s mood as he proceeded to talk about the tense incident between him and Rock. “What have y’all been doing?”
“That was a horrific night, as you can imagine. There’s many nuances and complexities to it. But at the end of the day, I just — I lost it, you know?” Smith added. “I was going through something that night, you know? Not that that justifies my behavior at all… It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know? All of that just bubbled up in that moment. That is not who I want to be,” according to Variety.
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Rock made a joke suggesting Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, star in the sequel of “G.I. Jane” due to her appearance, the actress lives with alopecia, and the main character has a shaved head. The off-color jab irked Smith, and he stormed the stage and slapped Rock, reports Urban Hollywood 411. The fallout from the debacle was fast and furious with the Academy banning Smith from attending future ceremonies for ten years.
“I was going through something that night, you know? Not that that justifies my behavior at all,” he revealed. “I was gone, dude. That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time. And I understand the pain.”
Smith continued, “We just gotta be nice to each other. It’s hard, and I guess the thing that was most painful for me is I took my hard and made it hard for other people. I understood the idea when they say, ‘Hurt people hurt people.’”
Noah continued to allow Smith to expound on the turmoil he was feeling that fateful evening.
“It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother. It’s all of that just bubbled up in that moment. It’s just – that’s not who I want to be,” Smith said.
Noah further comforted Smith with, “Everybody can make a mistake,” causing Smith to become teary-eyed.
Many viewers of the episode remarked that Noah handled the interview with grace as he spoke about the various opinions expressed on social media about the incident.
“I love Chris. I’m friends with him. I love you, but this is fucked up… I know that as Black people, Black people get together and go, ‘What was Will doing? What the hell happened?’ A lot of Black people were like, ‘He should go to jail.’ Like, you need to relax yourself,” Noah said. “Some people were overreacting, which made some people underreact.”
The sit-down eventually centered around Smith’s film that tells the story of a runaway slave known as “Whipped Peter,” who displayed his back splattered with scars as evidence of the evils of enslavement.
“First seeing that image was one of the things that really got me excited to explore this, because you see the image, but you don’t know who he is. You don’t know what the story is,” Smith said. “American slavery was one of the most brutal aspects of human history… It is hard to understand the level of human cruelty. My daughter asked me, ‘Daddy, do we really need another slave movie?’ I said, ‘Daby, I promise you, I wouldn’t make a slave movie. This is a freedom movie.'”
“Emancipation” drops in theaters this Friday and then will be available for streaming on Dec. 9 on Apple TV+.
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