Will Smith Apologises To Chris Rock After Infamous Oscar Slap
For the first time since slapping the comedian onstage at the 2022 Academy Awards, Will Smith has come out to openly apologise to Chris Rock.
This comes after Will Smith released a video on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook where he apologised to Rock once more and says, “I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk,” four months after slapping him across the face at the Oscars.
“I’ve reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk, and when he is he will reach out,” Will said. “So I will say to you, Chris, I apologize to you. My behavior was unacceptable, and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.”
Will said in his Oscars winning speech for Best Actor why he didn’t apologise to Rock, “By that time, I had lost my vision. Everything is hazy.”
The King Richard actor continued by expressing his desire to make amends to Rock’s mother, “I saw an interview that his mother did. That’s one of the things about that moment I didn’t realize, I wasn’t thinking, but how many people got hurt in that moment.”
He continued, “So I want to apologize to Chris’s mother; I want to apologize to Chris’s family, specifically Tony Rock, Chris’s younger brother. We had a great relationship. Tony Rock was my man. This is probably irreparable.”
Prior to receiving the Best Actor award on March 27, Will took exception to a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald head, walked up to Chris Rock on stage and struck him on live television. Jada, aged 50, has alopecia.
Days later, Will Smith said in a statement that he had “reacted on impulse of his emotions because the punchline was “too much for me to bear.”
