It’s been dubbed “the slap heard around the world,” and the fallout from actor Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock for telling a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith at the Oscars continues. Given it was an unscripted moment of violence that shocked viewers and pretty much everyone in attendance at the Academy Award ceremony, many are aghast that after striking Rock, Smith returned to his seat, suffered zero consequences, and then waited patiently to win the Best Actor statue for his performance in “King Richard.” Following Smith’s apology, Pinkett Smith’s call for “healing,” and an investigation opened by the Academy branch, many celebrities are weighing in. Some are very well connected to the story, others were not in attendance that night. Today, two of the night’s three Oscar hosts gave their two cents and as you might imagine, the takes are unvarnished and emotional.
In a brief comment, Oscars co-host Wanda Sykes a, longtime friend of Rock, told People on Monday that “violence is never the answer.” Sykes followed that up with an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (see below), where the comedian recalled being shown the video after the fact, saying “I felt so awful for my friend Chris.”
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“It was sickening,” she continued. “I was psychically ill, I’m still a little traumatized by it. For them to let him stay in that room and enjoy the rest of the show and accept his award, I was like ‘How gross is this?’ It’s just the wrong message. If you assault someone you get escorted out the building and that’s it, but for them to let him continue I thought it was gross.”
“Plus, I wanted to run out, after [Smith] won and say ‘unfortunately, Will couldn’t be here tonight.'”
Sykes is aware that Smith apologized to Rock and The Academy, but feels upset that none of the hosts got an apology after “working really hard to put that show together.” Rock went out of his way after the show to apologize to Sykes privately.
Fellow co-host Amy Schumer, who had to defend a comedy bit featuring Kirsten Dunst from that same night, took to Instagram and lauded Rock’s de-escalation of the situation as the mark of a professional showman. Her comments of shock and dismay seemed to echo sentiments similar to Skyes’.
“Still triggered and traumatized. I love my friend Chris Rock and believe he handled it like a pro. Stayed up there and gave an Oscar to his friend Questlove and the whole thing was so disturbing. So much pain in Will Smith, anyway, I’m still in shock and stunned and sad. I’m proud of myself and my co-hosts. But yeah. Waiting for this sickening feeling to go away from what we all witnessed,” Schumer wrote.
We still haven’t heard from Rock about his reaction to Smith’s apology and fellow co-host Regina Hall hasn’t weighed in either. However, Rock is said to be doing a stand-up gig tonight and you may very well read a distillation on Twitter tonight and headlines in the morning. Rock knows how to be self-deprecating and he could mine new material out of this moment for years if he so chooses. How angry or how funny he actually gets? Keep refreshing, we’ll be keeping an eye out too.
