Will Smith/Chris Rock incident: Real or Staged?

[DaveBrown74]

By now many of you will have seen or heard about the incident at the Oscars last night. Chris Rock was on stage, and he cracked a bald joke about Will Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who shaved her head due to suffering from alopecia.

Smith subsequently marched on stage and smacked Chris Rock across the face quite hard. At that point, I assumed it was all fake. However it sounded much more serious when Smith started screaming at him back from the seats. The fact that the LAPD put out a statement after the event further suggests it was real. Here is the video (please be aware there are expletives):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOsPuUnvK9E

By now, most signs seem to point to it being real. I guess it's not 100% definite though.

Assuming it's real, what a terrible look for Will Smith. Even if he was truly offended by that, there are numerous other ways to handle it that would have been better than that. If there are no criminal or civil ramifications for him, he should consider himself lucky.

[Slugsy-Narrows]

By now many of you will have seen or heard about the incident at the Oscars last night. Chris Rock was on stage, and he cracked a bald joke about Will Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who shaved her head due to suffering from alopecia.

Smith subsequently marched on stage and smacked Chris Rock across the face quite hard. At that point, I assumed it was all fake. However it sounded much more serious when Smith started screaming at him back from the seats. The fact that the LAPD put out a statement after the event further suggests it was real. Here is the video (please be aware there are expletives):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOsPuUnvK9E

By now, most signs seem to point to it being real. I guess it's not 100% definite though.

Assuming it's real, what a terrible look for Will Smith. Even if he was truly offended by that, there are numerous other ways to handle it that would have been better than that. If there are no criminal or civil ramifications for him, he should consider himself lucky.

Most exciting thing to happen at boring, unwatchable award shows in decades!


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[GordonGekko80]

This was not staged. Can't be. The reaction from W Smith after the slap made that pretty evident.

Agree on the perception re W Smith, didn't look good on him. On the flipside, I think Ch Rock overstepped the line there, heavily. Poor on both sides if you ask me.

[DaveBrown74]

Most exciting thing to happen at boring, unwatchable award shows in decades!


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True, and that is why there are still some who believe it may have been staged.

If it was staged, they did a good job, because I believe it was real, and I'm usually a skeptic with these sorts of things.

[DaveBrown74]

This was not staged. Can't be. The reaction from W Smith after the slap made that pretty evident.

Agree on the perception re W Smith, didn't look good on him. On the flipside, I think Ch Rock overstepped the line there, heavily. Poor on both sides if you ask me.

Perhaps, but the reaction was still outrageously over the top. The joke was not very nice, but it was nothing compared to the stuff Ricky Gervais has said to people over the years at the Golden Globes. Not even close. Most adults have more self control than that. Especially adults in the public eye who routinely have to deal with all kinds of attacks and criticism.

[Ed Vette]

They won

[EDjohnst1981]

I don

[T200]

It wasn't real.

A face slap doesn't sound like a 'thud' and Rock's mic is right there on his lapel. If it was a real slap, the mic would have picked up a different sound.

Plus, Will wouldn't have done that if he was really offended at a joke. He would have pulled Chris aside off camera. Maybe things would have gotten escalated backstage (I doubt it). Chris Rock is a comedian, not a fighter.

Last, this  https://youtu.be/8cBRfjcY9SQ  is how Will slaps a man    And even in that clip, you can hear a 'smack' and not a 'thud' sound.

[DaveBrown74]

These people are all so full of themselves.

No doubt about that. Even before the show became unpopular, the Oscars were always a 3-4 hour festival of self-congratulation and hackneyed political lectures, often coming from people who clearly don't know that much about the subjects they're preaching about.

[Slugsy-Narrows]

They won

[DaveBrown74]

It wasn't real.

A face slap doesn't sound like a 'thud' and Rock's mic is right there on his lapel. If it was a real slap, the mic would have picked up a different sound.

Plus, Will wouldn't have done that if he was really offended at a joke. He would have pulled Chris aside off camera. Maybe things would have gotten escalated backstage (I doubt it). Chris Rock is a comedian, not a fighter.

Last, this  https://youtu.be/8cBRfjcY9SQ  is how Will slaps a man    And even in that clip, you can hear a 'smack' and not a 'thud' sound.

The LAPD made a public statement a couple hours after the event, stating they would not move forward with charges since Chris Rock was not pressing them.

It is hard to believe a serious institution like that would get involved in a Hollywood publicity stunt.

[Sem]

I don't know, and I don't care.

[DaveBrown74]

Ding ding ding ding!

Idc if it was real or fake!  I still won

[Slugsy-Narrows]

I agree, although in a serious fight Smith would be a big favorite against Rock, and Rock knows that.

Nonetheless, he held himself together impressively.

Will Smith doesn't appear to be particularly remorseful or even reflective about the incident. Nice job with the alligator tears in the acceptance speech. Here he is at the after-party following this whole incident:

https://twitter.com/RaminSetoodeh/status/1508346440321433607

Dave

In the moment idk if the brain calculates can a beat this man

[Ed Vette]

I can accept it if he was standing right next to Chris Rock when he made the comment and it was a knee jerk reaction. That didn