When Will Smith accepted his Oscar on Sunday, it felt like he was at the peak of his career, despite his onstage assault on comedian Chris Rock an hour earlier.
To a standing ovation, Smith tearfully explained his actions as those of a man wanting to protect his family from abuse – Rock had referenced his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s baldness, despite her recent diagnosis of alopecia.
Backstage, Rock declared himself “fine” and declined to pursue the matter further. The Academy apparently asked Smith to leave the auditorium, but appeared content with his refusal.
Shortly after his speech, Smith stood on the dance floor at the Vanity Fair party, surrounded by well-wishers, clutching the statuette to his chest. Everything seemed – if not forgotten – then on the way to be forgiven.
But a week is a long time in show business, and six days later, Smith’s reputation seems a lot shakier. As soon as the slap aired on TV, celebrity viewers were quick to castigate the actor. Mark Hamill and Rob Reiner were disgusted; Jim Carrey and Judd Apatow were among those who suggested that Smith should have been arrested. Politicians, including Keir Starmer, echoed the sentiment of outrage.
Two days later, the verdicts of those in the room at the time of the incident began to trickle down and were even more stinging. Joseph Patel, a producer on the Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul, said Smith was “selfish” and “robbed” him and his filmmakers of their moment of fame. Pedro Almodóvar, who was seated near the stage, said the scene “evoked a feeling of absolute rejection in me”.
At the Vanity Fair Oscar Party… Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, Will Smith, Jaden Smith and Trey Smith. Photo: Matt Baron/Rex/ShutterstockThe Academy, under fire for inaction, stepped in. A previously announced investigation has been upgraded to a disciplinary proceeding. Two of the three hosts of the evening declared themselves “traumatized”. “I’m still triggered,” Amy Schumer said, while Wanda Sykes explained that the scene was “absolutely disgusting … I felt physically ill.”
On Friday, Oscars television producer Will Packer tried to further deflect criticism by telling Good Morning America that Los Angeles police immediately called the attack “battery” and offered to arrest Smith.
It was only the victim’s choice, Packer said, that prevented this from happening. “Chris has been very dismissive of those options,” he said. “He said, ‘No, I’m fine.’ He said, ‘No, no, no.’”
Rock’s conciliatory mood was also cited by Packer as a reason Smith was not kicked out of the auditorium by the academy’s leadership. “I said Chris Rock doesn’t want that. I said Rock made it clear he didn’t want to make a bad situation worse.”
Some players expressed disappointment with Chris Rock’s failure to discuss the slap in his routine
However, some sources suggest that Rock was not asked by Packer for his opinion on Smith being thrown out of the auditorium, only on the possibility of Smith being arrested by the police.
Ticket prices for dates on Rock’s current comedy tour have skyrocketed, but some bettors at shows earlier in the week expressed disappointment at Rock’s failure to open up about the slap in his routine.
Since publicly apologizing Monday for “reacting emotionally,” Smith has also remained silent on the incident while his team recalibrates his response.
A number of options seem possible. Smith could appear on a chat show to discuss the incident, as Sykes and Packer did – although doing so risks his appearance diminishing the seriousness of the incident. The actor is more likely to agree to a lengthy interview conducted by the likes of Oprah Winfrey.
As his acceptance speech showed, much of Smith’s defense rests on his claims of high emotional stakes and personal history. The narrative he built is about a flawed man, used to the unforgiving limelight, who eventually breaks down under pressure when anyone insults his family.
This is backed up by passages in his deeply personal memoir, Will, published last fall, detailing the domestic violence he witnessed his father inflicting on his mother and his own guilt at failing to intervene .
“What you understand as ‘Will Smith,’ the alien-slaying MC, the larger-than-life movie star, is largely a construct,” he wrote, “a carefully crafted and polished character designed to protect myself. To hide from the world To hide the coward.”
In a Berlin park…a mural of the slap in the face by artist Jesus Cruz Artiles, aka Eme Freethinker. Photo: Clemens Bilan/EPAAn hour-long TV special along the lines of Winfrey’s audience with Prince Harry and Meghan would not only be better known and more lucrative, but would also provide space to explore that background further.
Another avenue would be for Smith to produce such a show himself. His memoir was released alongside a YouTube series, The Best Shape of My Life, which chronicles his 20-pound weight loss coupled with a psychological growth program.
The actor and his family are no strangers to religious broadcasting. Pinkett Smith’s popular Facebook show Red Table Talk, co-hosted with her mother “Gammy” and daughter Willow, has explored issues such as grief, sexual intimacy and digestive health.
Will Smith guest-starred on an infidelity episode in July 2020 to discuss rumors surrounding the couple’s own extramarital affairs and their brief separation four years ago.
All of the Smiths, including Jada and Will’s son Jaden and Trey, Will’s son from a previous relationship, appeared as themselves on television shows that were just a step away from the reality shows popularized by families like the Kardashians.
The public esteem Smith enjoys could be hard to shake. A YouGov poll of 1,319 US adults conducted earlier in the week found only a slim majority thought he was wrong to hit Rock.
It also remains in Hollywood’s best interests that Smith regain the favor that marked his 30 years as a leading man. Films in which he starred have grossed almost US$6.5 billion (£5 billion) at the global box office, and his appeal has been of an unusual breadth and reach, spanning gender, demographics, nationalities and ethnicities.
One sector that has been relatively vocal in support of the actor over the past week has been the US Christian press, which was struck by the references in his speech to being a “vessel” run by a “higher power”.
Smith’s account of Denzel Washington’s advice to “be careful in your highest moment–then the devil will come for you” was hailed as “biblically sound” by Christian Broadcast News (CBN).
Washington’s faith journey is being followed warmly by such outlets in the US; CBN has praised his “encouraging comments and focus on the devil’s attempts to bring people down.”
The results of the academy’s investigation will be announced in about three weeks, but Smith’s award seems unlikely to be revoked. Whoopi Goldberg, a member of the academy’s board of governors, said Monday, “We’re not going to take that Oscar away from him,” and even Oscars won by expelled members have not been recalled.
Only a handful of members of the academy have been disfellowshipped, largely on grounds of sexual assault convictions, including Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby (whose sexual assault conviction was vacated last year).
Another complicating factor is that Smith’s next film, Emancipation, won Lead Actor at the 2023 Academy Awards. Based on a real-life story, Smith plays an 1863 escaped slave whose photographs greatly benefited the abolitionist cause.
The film was bought by Apple TV for $120 million in a virtual marketplace in Cannes in 2020, setting a record for a film festival acquisition. Apple scored its first Best Picture win with Coda on Sunday.
The distributor will be counting on Smith being welcomed back into the herd in time for promotional assignments for this film, either through his own efforts or through public fatigue with slap-gate.
On Thursday, actor Daniel Radcliffe seemed to speak for many when asked his opinion on the incident on Good Morning Britain. “I saw it,” he told Susanna Reid. “I’m just so bored of hearing people’s opinions on this already that I just don’t want another opinion added.”