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(CNN) — Like many people who saw the encounter that ended with Will Smith slapping Chris Rock onstage at the Academy Awards, Will Packer, the Oscars’ lead producer, thought it was staged.
But when Smith — angered by a joke Rock made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith — yelled obscenities at the audience after taking the stage to confront Rock, Packer realized it was real.
“When I saw Will scream so hard on stage, my heart swelled,” Packer said in an exclusive interview with TJ Holmes on ABC’s Good Morning America, which aired Friday. “And I just remember thinking, ‘Oh no. Oh no. Not so.'”
“And Chris stayed cool when everyone else lost their cool,” he added.
Packer provided an insight into one of the most famous and controversial moments in Academy Awards history.
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Immediately after the incident, Academy leaders, through his publicist, asked Smith to leave, but he refused, he said. Packer was told Smith should be physically removed, but Packer went to the academy leaders who were there and told them Rock didn’t want it, the producer told GMA on Friday.
“I said, ‘Rock has made it clear that he doesn’t want to make a bad situation worse,'” Packer said. “That was the energy of Chris. His tone wasn’t retaliatory, his tone wasn’t aggressively angry, so he stood up for what rock wanted at the time, which was not to physically take out Will Smith at the time.”
Will Smith’s attack left the producer “devastated.”
The first-time Oscar producer “felt more devastated than he did in that moment” when he saw Smith hit Rock, Packer said, and then ran towards Rock as he walked offstage to confirm that Smith had actually hit him.
“I said, ‘Did he really hit you?'” Packer said. “And he looked at me and said, ‘Yes.’ He says, “I just took a hit from Muhammad Ali,” as only Chris Rock can.He immediately went into prank mode, but you could tell he was still in shock.”Smith played the famous boxer in 2001’s Movie Ali.
The show was going well up until the crash, Packer said, crediting Rock’s composure with helping save the remainder of the show.
“Because Chris handled the moment with such grace and composure, he allowed the show to go on,” Packer said. “Because Chris kept going like this, he completed the category [mejor documental]gave him the trophy [ganador] Questlove, another person who I think really stole his moment, gave us the license to continue the show and that’s what we wanted to do.”
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Los Angeles Police Department agents soon barged into Packer’s office, the producer told Good Morning America, Rock said, “This is an assault,” and stood ready to arrest Smith that night.
Police said: “‘We will look for him. We are ready. We are ready to catch him immediately. You can file charges. We can arrest him,'” Packer said. “As they talked, Chris was … very dismissive of those options. He said, ‘No, I’m fine.’ He said, ‘No, no, no.’”
There was controversy over the standing ovation Smith received for winning best actor for “King Richard” shortly after he beat Rock.
But Packer said he has a different perspective and believes people are celebrating Smith, not the actions he just took.
“I think the people in this room who stood up were defending someone they knew,” Packer said. “That he was a partner, he was a friend, he was a brother who has had a career spanning more than three decades where he was the opposite of what we saw at the time.”
Smith publicly apologized to Rock via social media the following day. Smith also contacted Packer the next morning, apologizing and expressing his embarrassment, the producer said.
The Academy has initiated a “disciplinary proceeding” against Smith.