Months after slapping comedian Chris Rock during a live broadcast of the 2022 Academy Awards, Will Smith finally returned to late-night television on Monday (11.28,) by sitting down with hist Trevor Noah on The Daily Show.
Almost three quarters of a year after the slap heard ’round the world, and innumerable online comments concerning the incident, when Noah asked the superstar musician/actor about his experience following the incident, Smith said it was a “horrific night.”
“There’s many nuances and complexities to it. But at the end of the day, I just — I lost it, you know?” stated Will. “I was going through something that night, you know? Not that that justifies my behavior at all. It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know? All of that just bubbled up in that moment. That is not who I want to be.”
Smith, who took home the Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of Richard Williams in King Richard several minutes after the horrific incident, added, “I guess the thing that was most painful for me is, I took my hard and made it hard for other people.” When talking about what he learned in the months after, he also said, “I understood the idea when they say hurt people hurt people.”
Following the interview, Trevor, who is leaving the show at the end of next week, offered his own perspective on the controversy, saying:
“I love Chris. I’m friends with him. I love you, but this is fucked up. I know that as Black people, Black people get together and go, ‘What was Will doing? What the hell happened?’ Noah said. “A lot of Black people were like, ‘He should go to jail.’ Like, you need to relax yourself.”
Sharing a personal anecdote following the Oscar night debacle, Will Smith added:
“My nephew is nine. He is the sweetest little boy. We came home. He had stayed up late to see his uncle Will,” Smith recalled. “We are sitting in my kitchen and he is on my lap and he is holding the Oscar and he is just like, ‘Why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?’ Damn it. Why are you trying to Oprah me?”
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Author: Al Denté
Photo: Singlespeedfahrer