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Journalism of Courage
The audience was left shocked after witnessing an unbelievable exchange between Will Smith and Chris Rock during the Oscars ceremony late Sunday. Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s hairstyle and said he was looking forward to a sequel to G.I. Jane.
An infuriated Smith stood up from his seat and headed towards Rock and slapped him. “Oh, wow! Wow! Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me. Wow, dude. It was a G.I. Jane joke,” he said even as the audience laughed. The comedian was referencing the 1997 film G.I. Jane in which Demi Moore shaved her head.
Smith, who won the best actor for King Richard later, shouted Rock to “keep my wife’s name out of your (expletive) mouth.” To which Rock responded by saying, “I am going to. That’s the greatest night in the history of television.”
In December last year, Jada Pinkett Smith told Billboard she has been battling alopecia, the autoimmune disorder which can cause hair loss and balding.
The Will Smith-Chris Rock exchange at the Oscars has left netizens shocked. Some users assumed it was a staged act while some users praised Smith for supporting his wife. Some fans were agitated with Smith’s reaction. One user said, “If this WASNT staged- I just stopped being a Will Smith fan.”
“Violence is never”, “Apologize”, “Chris Rock” and “Jada” started trending on Twitter and memes flooded Twitter.
See reactions:
https://twitter.com/Janetremblay2/status/1508272890977869841
https://twitter.com/suewilbur/status/1508273047974793217
https://twitter.com/axemii_ap/status/1508290419485986819
After the exchange, presenter Daniel Kaluuya hugged Smith and Denzel Washington took him to the side of the stage to brush it off.
Later during the Best Actor Oscar acceptance speech, Smith said, “I wanna apologize to the Academy… to all my fellow nominees. … Art imitates life, I look like the crazy father! … Love will make you do crazy things.”
“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family. In this time in my life, in this moment, I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world. Making this film, I got to protect Aunjanue Ellis, who is one of the strongest, most delicate people I’ve ever met. I got to protect Saniyya and Demi, the two actresses that played Venus and Serena,” he added and he broke down into tears.
“I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people. I know to do what we do, 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 to pretend like that’s okay,” he said.
