Oscars 2022: Will Smith slaps Chris Rock after latter’s joke on his wife Jada Pinkett

With Oscars 2022 taking place today, fans have been laying their eyes on the award ceremony to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars being honoured for their craft. With several entries in respective categories, it will be quite thrilling to watch the bottleneck competition and see who takes the trophy home. Amid the excitement, a video of Will Smith hitting Chris Rock has been making rounds on the internet leaving fans shocked.

Chris Rock was slapped hard by Will Smith on the stage after the former joked about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith to play the titular in GI Jane 2. After Rock joked about his wife, Smith got on the stage at Dolby Theatre and hit Rock in the face leaving all the spectators and fans in a complete state of shock.       

Will Smith hits comedian Chris Rock in face at Oscars 2022 

Though the audio of the video is cut and censored for several seconds, captions indicated that the King Richard star said, “keep my wife’s name out of your… mouth.” The comedian looked shocked before handing over the best documentary prize, which was the reason he was on stage.

For the unknown, Rock’s joke referred to the popular 1997 film GI Jane, in which actor Demi Moore played the titular role with a buzzcut. Chris poked fun and asked Jada Pinkett Smith to play the titular role, considering her baldness which is due to a disease. She had previously spoken about having a hair loss condition, alopecia.

“I did not know that this year would be the most exciting Oscar ever,” Sean “Diddy” Combs said after. “Will and Chris we’re gonna solve that like family at the goal party right now we’re moving on with love.”

The entire incident has left the Twitter army quite shocked who were still trying to figure out what really happened. One of the users wrote, “will smith after winning an oscar right after he smacked Chris rock.” Another user wrote, “Why are folks disappointed in Will Smith? I thought it was “Protect Black Women”????????” A third user chimed in and wrote, “One fan chimed in, “I’m sitting right here and I thought that was scripted. that was not scripted oh my god what’s the story will, and Chris?!!! #Oscars.”    

Moments after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock over the 'GI Jane' remark, the actor issued an apology for his aggressive behaviour on the stage during his speech. Will Smith said, "I'm being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people... You got to be able to take abuse, you got to be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business, you got to be able to have people disrespecting you and you got to smile and you got pretend like that's okay." He further mentioned a brief chat with Denzel Washington, who told him to be careful at his highest moment as "that's when the devil comes for you."

After the incident, the LAPD issued a statement and revealed that the “individuals involved has declined to file a police report.” The LAPD has commented on Will Smith striking Chris Rock on stage at the Academy Awards, saying “The individual involved has declined to file a police report.”

IMAGE: AP