Why Will Smith Slaped Chris Rock on the Oscars stage
The scene surprised the whole world.
This is a moment of television that the Academy of the Oscars would never have liked to see. "What just happened?" : Oscars viewers were stunned on Sunday night after an altercation between actors Will Smith and Chris Rock, the former going up on stage to slap the latter.
Chris Rock, one of the presenters at the 94th Hollywood Awards, had just made a joke about Will Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith. He compared her close-cropped hair to Demi Moore's shaved head in Ridley Scott's On Equal Arms (1997).
Jada Pinkett-Smith, who has publicly spoken about her alopecia (hair loss) in the past, rolled her eyes. At first hilarious, Will Smith then went on stage and slapped Chris Rock, the sound of the blow resonating in the microphones in front of the stunned spectators, in the room where the ceremony was taking place as on their sofa.