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      Oscars Producer Did Not Want Will Smith Physically Removed After Slap

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      Will Packer, the producer of the telecast, said that Smith had been asked to leave after slapping Chris Rock, and then there were discussions of having him physically removed.Will Packer, the lead producer of the Oscars telecast that was thrown into upheaval after the actor Will Smith went onstage and slapped the comedian Chris Rock, said Friday that after Mr. Smith had been asked to leave the ceremony, he urged the Academy leadership not to “physically remove” him from the theater in the middle of the live broadcast.Mr. Packer said he had learned from his co-producer, Shayla Cowan, that there were discussions of plans to “physically remove” Mr. Smith from the venue. So he said he immediately approached academy officials and told them that he believed Mr. Rock did not want to “make a bad situation worse.”“I was advocating what Rock wanted in that time, which was not to physically remove Will Smith at that time,” Mr. Packer said. “Because as it has now been explained to me, that was the only option at that point. It has been explained to me that there was a conversation that I was not a part of to ask him to voluntarily leave.”EXCLUSIVE: #Oscars producer Will Packer tells Good Morning America about the frenetic aftermath of actor Will Smith slapping host Chris Rock live on stage on Hollywood’s biggest night. https://t.co/AeoYcGkM32 pic.twitter.com/8z35t8TPFw— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 1, 2022
      Mr. Packer gave his first interview since Sunday’s broadcast to “Good Morning America” on ABC, the network which also broadcasts the Oscars. In the interview, Mr. Packer said that Mr. Rock’s joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair was unscripted “free-styling”“He didn’t tell one of the planned jokes,” he said of Mr. Rock.Mr. Packer said that, like many viewers at home, he had originally thought the slap might be part of an unplanned comedic bit, and that he was not entirely sure until he spoke with Mr. Rock back stage that Mr. Smith had actually hit the comedian.“I just took a punch from Muhammad Ali,” Mr. Packer recalled Mr. Rock telling him.Mr. Packer said that Mr. Smith reached out and apologized to him the morning after the Oscars. And he praised Mr. Rock for having kept his cool. “Chris was keeping his head when everyone else was losing theirs,” he said.The Altercation Between Will Smith and Chris RockThe Incident: The Oscars were derailed when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, who made a joke about Mr. Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.His Speech: Moments after the onstage altercation, Mr. Smith won the Oscar for best actor. Here’s what he said in his acceptance speech.The Aftermath: Mr. Smith, who the academy said refused to leave following the incident, apologized to Mr. Rock the next day after the academy denounced his actions.A Triumph Tempered: Mr. Smith owned Serena and Venus Williams’s story in “King Richard.” Then he stole their moment at the Oscars.What Is Alopecia?: Ms. Smith’s hair loss condition played a major role in the incident.“I’ve never felt so immediately devastated,” Mr. Packer said of the incident.Asked if, after hearing Mr. Smith’s acceptance speech, he wished that the actor had left the ceremony, Mr. Packer said that he did, noting that Mr. Smith had not used his remarks to express real contrition and apologize to Mr. Rock.“If he wasn’t going to give that speech which made it truly better, then yes, yes,” Mr. Packer said when asked if he wished Mr. Smith had left the ceremony. “Because now you don’t have the optics of somebody who committed this act, didn’t nail it in terms of a conciliatory acceptance speech in that moment, who then continued to be in the room.”Shortly after the ceremony ended Sunday, the Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement saying that the person who had been slapped had “declined to file a police report.”In the interview, Mr. Packer described his recollection of law enforcement’s involvement.“They were saying, you know, this is battery, was the word they use in that moment,” Mr. Packer said in the interview. “They said we will go get him; we are prepared. We’re prepared to get him right now. You can press charges. We can arrest him. They were laying out the options, and as they were talking, Chris was being very dismissive of those options. He was like, ‘No, I’m fine.’ He was like, ‘No, no, no.’”Both on Sunday night and in subsequent interviews this week, the Los Angeles police have maintained that Mr. Smith’s slap qualified as misdemeanor battery under California law — and that as a misdemeanor, officers cannot take action unless the victim in the case files charges, which Mr. Rock did not do.In an interview on Thursday, Deputy Chief Blake Chow, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Bureau, described the department’s role in less dramatic terms. At the Oscars, police officers are primarily responsible for patrolling outside the Dolby Theater and the Academy hires a security company to handle issues inside the building, he said.On Sunday, one police captain was stationed backstage as a liaison, the deputy chief said. The police captain inside did not observe the slap himself; but he quickly became aware of it, the deputy chief added. The police captain made contact with a representative for Mr. Rock shortly after the comedian had finished presenting an award and had returned backstage with his team, Deputy Chief Chow said.The representative communicated “Chris Rock’s wishes” that he did not want to press charges or file a police report, the deputy chief said. “He didn’t want to do anything.”The police department was not asked to escort Mr. Smith out of the venue, and even if the police had been asked to do that, such a request would not have fallen within the department’s purview, the deputy chief said.Detectives followed up on Monday with Mr. Rock’s representatives to ensure that he still did not want to take action. He reaffirmed that he did not, the deputy chief said.Mr. Rock made his first public comments about the incident on Wednesday at a comedy show in Boston. “I’m still kind of processing what happened,” Mr. Rock said, while promising to discuss the episode in greater depth later. “It’ll be serious, it’ll be funny, but I’d love to — I’m going to tell some jokes.”The academy said Wednesday that it had initiated disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Smith “for violations of the academy’s standards of conduct, including inappropriate physical contact, abusive or threatening behavior, and compromising the integrity of the academy.” It said that Mr. Smith would be given a chance to respond and that at its next board meeting, on April 18, it “may take any disciplinary action, which may include suspension, expulsion or other sanctions.” More

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      Will Smith Refused to Leave Oscars After Slap, Academy Says

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      The academy revealed that Smith was asked to leave the ceremony after slapping Chris Rock at the Academy Awards, and said that it was initiating disciplinary proceedings.LOS ANGELES — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Wednesday that the actor Will Smith was asked to leave the Oscars ceremony after he slapped Chris Rock Sunday night onstage, but that the actor had refused to go.The admission came as part of a statement the academy released saying it had initiated disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Smith “for violations of the academy’s standards of conduct, including inappropriate physical contact, abusive or threatening behavior, and compromising the integrity of the academy.”The disciplinary process will take a few weeks to conclude, it said. Mr. Smith is being given at least 15 days’ notice of a vote regarding his violations and potential sanctions. He will be given the opportunity to be heard beforehand with a written response. The organization’s board of governors are scheduled to meet again April 18.The Altercation Between Will Smith and Chris RockThe Incident: The Oscars were derailed when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, who made a joke about Mr. Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.His Speech: Moments after the onstage altercation, Mr. Smith won the Oscar for best actor. Here’s what he said in his acceptance speech.The Aftermath: Mr. Smith, who the academy said refused to leave following the incident, apologized to Mr. Rock the next day after the academy denounced his actions.A Triumph Tempered: Mr. Smith owned Serena and Venus Williams’s story in “King Richard.” Then he stole their moment at the Oscars.What Is Alopecia?: Ms. Smith’s hair loss condition played a major role in the incident.“Mr. Smith’s actions at the 94th Oscars were a deeply shocking, traumatic event to witness in-person and on television,” the academy said in a statement. “Mr. Rock, we apologize to you for what you experienced on our stage and thank you for your resilience in that moment. We also apologize to our nominees, guests and viewers for what transpired during what should have been a celebratory event.”The statement continued, “Things unfolded in a way we could not have anticipated. While we would like to clarify that Mr. Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused, we also recognize we could have handled the situation differently.”The two-and-a-half-hour meeting of the board of governors on Wednesday was described by two people who attended as “emotional,” as the governors conveyed the feelings of their constituents from their branches of the film industry. The feeling in the room, according to those who attended, was that it was their obligation “to not normalize violence,” said two governors who were granted anonymity to discuss a private meeting.On Sunday at the Academy Awards, Mr. Smith reacted to a joke Mr. Rock had made about his wife’s buzzed hair by leaving his seat in the audience and slapping the comedian across the face, then warning him — with expletives — not to speak about his wife, the actress Jada Pinkett Smith. (Ms. Pinkett Smith has alopecia, which causes hair loss and has led her to regularly buzz her hair.)Shortly afterward Mr. Smith won an Oscar for his lead performance in “King Richard,” a biopic in which he played the patriarch of the Williams tennis family. He used his speech to apologize to the academy and fellow nominees — but not to Mr. Rock. The next day, after the academy condemned his actions and opened an inquiry, Mr. Smith apologized to Mr. Rock in a public statement that said he had been “out of line.”The stunning onstage moment immediately set off a national debate over who was to blame and, in Hollywood, questions about why Mr. Smith faced no repercussions after striking a presenter on live television.Wanda Sykes, one of the hosts of Sunday’s telecast, said in a clip from an interview with Ellen DeGeneres that was shared Wednesday that the moment was “sickening” to her and that she thought Smith should have been escorted from the building instead of being allowed to stay and accept his Oscar.“I’m still a little traumatized by it,” Ms. Sykes said in the clip from an episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” that is scheduled to air next week. “For them to let him stay in that room and enjoy the rest of the show and accept his award — I was like, how gross is this? This is just the wrong message.”Nicole Sperling More

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      Oscars Audience Jumped After Will Smith’s Slap of Chris Rock

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      The Oscars audience swelled by more than half a million people on Sunday shortly after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, capping the awards show with a late-night surge.At 10:27 p.m., Mr. Smith attacked Mr. Rock after the comedian delivered a joke onstage about Mr. Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Nearly 17.4 million viewers were watching in the minutes after the slap, up from 16.8 million shortly before it, according to Nielsen data released by ABC.Mr. Rock, who was presenting an award, had taken a jab at the close-cropped hair of Ms. Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia, a condition that leads to hair loss. Mr. Smith walked onto the stage, struck Mr. Rock, and then returned to his seat and loudly demanded, using expletives, that the comedian refrain from talking about Ms. Pinkett Smith. Mr. Smith’s words, as well as Mr. Rock’s responses, were silenced during the broadcast, leaving many viewers struggling to understand what had happened and speculating whether the incident was scripted. (It was not.)Until that point, viewership had been tailing off. The largest audience measured by Nielsen came earlier in the night, when nearly 17.7 million people watched Troy Kotsur, the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar, deliver a heartfelt acceptance speech for his supporting role in “CODA.”Viewership dropped off quickly after the attack, but then surged again during the period when Mr. Smith, who was the heavily favored front-runner in the best actor race, returned to the stage to claim the award for his role in “King Richard.” About 17.4 million people watched his speech, according to the Nielsen data.On Monday, Mr. Smith apologized for his actions. Earlier that day, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it was conducting a formal review of the incident.Overall, the Oscars drew 16.6 million viewers, around 4.9 million of them 18 to 49 years old, according to Nielsen. The audience was 58 percent larger than the all-time low of 10.4 million people who watched last year, but was still by far the second smallest viewership on record. ABC said that the Oscars drove 22.7 million interactions on social media, a 139 percent increase over last year’s broadcast. More

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      Will Smith’s Slap Wasn’t the Only Astonishing Thing About the Oscars

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      One stretch of the broadcast featured a remarkable convergence of Black celebrities, our critic writes. But in the midst of it all, Will Smith’s victory became a defeat.This pandemic is still killing us. The virus at its center is one of the body. But it’s also costing us our minds. A sacked Capitol building, an invaded and decimated sovereign nation, a raft of refugee crises, more American murders, more overdoses, more harassment — for being Asian, for being Black, for being trans, for being on the subway, for waiting to ride the subway. On Sunday, a couple of hours before the 94th Academy Awards, I watched a man drive the wrong direction down my one-way street. He wasn’t in reverse. His car moved with confidence, with joy, as if this was the way it should be. At the end of the block, he took a right. That was the wrong way, too.So I don’t know why I was shocked when Will Smith got up from his seat that night and slapped Chris Rock. I actually wasn’t at first. I assumed, like lots of other people, that it was a bit because, by reputation, Will Smith walks on water. And surely, the crack that Rock had just made about Jada Pinkett Smith’s short, sharp haircut — that it looked like Demi Moore’s in “G.I. Jane,” a 25-year-old work of crypto-feminist trash — wasn’t the sort of joke one risks his reputation for. But these are now the times of our lives. Anybody could snap, even a man who was once one of Earth’s most beloved humans, even a man who, before he left his seat and swung, was poised to enjoy one of the happiest nights of his 53 years by accepting an Oscar for his role in “King Richard.”I assumed it was a bit also because of the easy way Smith strolled up to Rock and both the compact efficiency of his swing and the physics of Rock’s absorption of it. There was some choreography in it, some second nature. Smith returned to his seat and proceeded to yell up at Rock. ABC had cut the sound. But it was clear by then that we were well beyond bit territory. Rage had pooled around Smith’s eyes. Lupita Nyong’o was seated behind Smith; the agape attention in her face was all but audible. “Keep my wife’s name out your mouth,” he could be seen saying, plus the expletive I can’t print here.So why the eventual shock? For one thing, it wasn’t Kanye West who’d lost it. It wasn’t Martin Lawrence. It wasn’t Antonio Brown, whose erratic N.F.L. antics resumed in January when, in the middle of a Buccaneers-Jets game, he removed his jersey and pads, tossed his shirt and gloves into the stands and then ran off the field flashing a peace sign (this, for Brown, was mild). The source of Sunday night’s disruption is the winner of 10 individual Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards. And the shock was its disturbance of the Oscars routine, a routine that both Smith and Rock were familiar with, as a three-time nominee and a two-time host. The show wanted to settle back into its routine after Smith seemed to calm himself. That was shocking, too. The show just … went on.And yet it didn’t, not with the same disposable exuberance. Smith’s altercation with Rock occurred with an hour to go. And it began a journey through some strange entertainment prism of the Black male experience in this country. It was dominated by ’90s hip-hop stalwarts and capped by Tyler Perry, an artist whose movies the academy had never acknowledged but who lately tends to be on hand as a kind of dignitary. He kicked off the in memoriam segment with a tribute to Sidney Poitier, who died at the beginning of the year and whose enormous symbolic appeal Smith’s most evokes.Rock had been invited to announce the winner of the documentary feature Oscar. Once he’d regained his post-slap composure, he read Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s name for “Summer of Soul” — well, what he said was, “Ahmir Thompson and four white guys,” which isn’t accurate. Questlove, like Smith, grew up making music in Philadelphia. And he, too, was overcome by where he found himself — expressing gratitude to his mother and late father, considering the canonical importance of his movie, which presents the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival as a seamless outpouring of musical rhapsody.Questlove, at microphone, accepts the award for best documentary feature for “Summer of Soul,” with Joseph Patel, left, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesThen, perhaps, the show’s second most astonishing event took place. Sean Combs arrived, wiser than I’ve ever seen him. He sensed, perhaps, that maybe we’d forgotten that Rock wasn’t the actual host and that the night had gotten away from Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall and Amy Schumer, the show’s official M.C.s, and asked the room to give it up for them. He then addressed The Incident. “I did not know that this year was going to be the most exciting Oscars ever,” he said. “OK, Will and Chris, we’re going to solve that like family at the gold party, OK? But right now we’re moving on with love.” Had anyone told me that the person who might follow an altercation between the Fresh Prince and the star and co-writer of the rap parody “CB4” with an offer of conflict resolution was the founder of Bad Boy Records, that this offer would be extended at the Academy Awards, and that this person had been invited to pay tribute to “The Godfather” for its 50th anniversary, I would’ve asked whether Combs was the last star alive. He knows from beef. And in the matter of skirmishes, he appears to be a vegetarian now.Smith leaves the stage after slapping Rock.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesThat stretch of the broadcast said something to me about both how much farther Black people — Black men, especially — had come after centuries of American entertainment that for most of its existence had ignored their work and their existence. That stretch began in tastelessness, violence and pique, included the anointing of a divine achievement in nonfiction filmmaking and ended in a gospel-oriented celebration of the lives of the dead. Something had come full circle. A lot of odds had to be beat for these men — raised poor, lower-middle-class — to converge in this strange moment, as affluent shapers of culture. But an arc on that circle has marred the whole. And I don’t think that it’s overdoing it to identify that blemish as a tragic drama.Back in his seat, Smith waited, as per custom, for his category, best actor. The producers apparently didn’t ask him to leave. His name was called. As per custom, he took the stage and delivered a speech that has been inspected for the contrition expressed (to everyone but Rock) and identifications forged. He used it to explain that playing Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena Williams, had awakened in him an understanding of himself as a protector and defender — of women, of Black women. A couple of weeks earlier, he’d watched Jane Campion insult the meaning of the Williams sisters’ importance and could do nothing. And last year, he reconvened the cast of his show, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and wept over his failure to save the job of Janet Hubert, who spent three seasons playing Aunt Viv. At the Oscars, as he spoke through tears and clutched his Oscar, the Williamses, up in their seats, seemed like passengers on a roller coaster.Since November, Smith’s memoir, “Will,” has been one of the most popular books in the country. Its psychological centerpiece involves his guilt over seeing his father badly beat his mother when he was 9. But its prevailing psychological metaphor is the brick wall he learns to build alongside his father, his Daddio. What seemed to break on Sunday night was a kind of cycle. He watched his wife wince and perhaps saw his mother. Snap. Trauma can’t exonerate Smith: The combined age of the three people involved in this triangle is 160. But maybe it can explain that, for a few rueful minutes, a wall had come down — or gone up. Smith might have left his body. He was no longer 53 but 9 again; and poor Chris Rock, he was Daddio.Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith in the audience at the ceremony.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesIn the altercation’s wake, Smith said he received some wisdom from Denzel Washington, his fellow best actor nominee and a Hollywood sage now, one who’s been giving him advice since the beginning of his acting career. As Smith recounted in his speech, Washington said, “At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you.” A shallow piece of me assumed the devil to be Rock. But we all understand what Rock was doing that night: his job, not well with that hair joke, but he was working. The devil is deeper than that. When something breaks, he gets loose. He got loose at the Oscars.Watching Smith up there on Sunday, burying his behavior in the Williamses’ story, I’m not sure he was entirely back in his body. I’ve never experienced a victory that feels this much like defeat. I suspect he knew this, too. He wondered whether he’d ever be invited back. That feels right. He wasn’t accepting an Oscar so much as trying to turn himself in.WHEN SOMETHING BREAKS, it’s probably best not to use your hands to pick up the pieces. But there was Smith using a hand. What happened on Sunday will be one of those live events that we’ll now spend the rest of our lives baffled by, like Justin Timberlake exposing Janet Jackson’s breast at the end of the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. It’s been 55 years since anybody cared this much about a Hollywood slap. But when Poitier launched his against a haughty white moneybags in “In the Heat of the Night,” it was against racism. Sunday’s incident involved someone experiencing a private episode that we should never have seen.That’s one thing about the last two years. We’ve been made privy to all kinds of behavior we’d rather not see, witnesses of people’s worst moments. Now we’ve been made privy to one of Smith’s. Most of us don’t know any of these people. Yet we kind of do. We’ve made them part of some cultural family — that’s part of how stardom works (TV stardom, especially, which, early on, is what Smith, Pinkett Smith and Rock achieved). The reason so many of us are asking one another what just happened, the reason we’re so disturbed — a reason — is that maybe these three are like family, and it hurts to watch them feud. To witness intense emotional and psychological frailty (call it narcissism if you must) is to be left with as many questions about who we are as about who, Sunday night, Will Smith became. It’s like every other mystery of these past two years. We’ll never know. And with respect to him, why do we deserve to? More

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      Will Smith Apologizes to Chris Rock After Academy Condemns His Slap

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      “I was out of line and I was wrong,” said Smith, who hit Rock at the Oscars after the comedian made a joke about his wife. The film organization opened an inquiry into the incident. Will Smith walked onstage and slapped Chris Rock after the comedian made a joke about Mr. Smith’s wife, the actress Jada Pinkett Smith. Mr. Smith then yelled and cursed at Mr. Rock after returning to his seat.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesLOS ANGELES — Will Smith apologized to the comedian Chris Rock on Monday evening for slapping him during Sunday night’s Oscars telecast after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which administers the awards, denounced his actions and opened an inquiry into the incident.Mr. Smith, who had pointedly not apologized to Mr. Rock on Sunday night when he accepted the award for best actor, wrote on Instagram Monday evening that “I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris.”“I was out of line and I was wrong,” he said in the statement. “I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be.”His apology came as the academy, a major Hollywood union and others criticized his actions, which stunned viewers around the world and overshadowed the Oscars. “The academy condemns the actions of Mr. Smith at last night’s show,” the film organization said in a statement. “We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our bylaws, standards of conduct and California law.”The academy’s statement came after a meeting Monday. A five-page document on standards of conduct that accompanied it spells out behavior the organization deems unacceptable. It prohibits “physical contact that is uninvited and, in the situation, inappropriate and unwelcome, or coercive sexual attention.” Also not allowed is “intimidation, stalking, abusive or threatening behavior, or bullying.”Disciplinary action, according to the bylaws, could include “suspension of membership or expulsion from membership.”The Academy was not known to have expelled a member before 2017, when Harvey Weinstein was removed amid allegations of sexual harassment and rape. Then, in 2018, after adopting a code of conduct for members, the organization expelled Bill Cosby, who had been convicted of sexual assault, and the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who had fled the country years earlier while awaiting sentencing for statutory rape.The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the union representing thousands of people who work in film, television and radio, called the incident “unacceptable” but said that it “does not comment on any pending member disciplinary process.”“Violence or physical abuse in the workplace is never appropriate and the union condemns any such conduct,” the union said in a statement Monday. “The incident involving Will Smith and Chris Rock at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable.”How to Understand the Altercation Between Will Smith and Chris RockThe Incident: The Oscars were derailed when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, who made a joke about Mr. Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.His Speech: Moments after the onstage altercation, Mr. Smith won the Oscar for best actor. Here’s what he said in his acceptance speech.The Aftermath: Mr. Smith apologized to Mr. Rock the next day after the Academy denounced his actions and opened an inquiry into the incident.A Triumph Tempered: Mr. Smith owned Serena and Venus Williams’s story in “King Richard.” Then he stole their moment at the Oscars.What Is Alopecia?: Ms. Smith’s hair loss condition played a major role in the incident.The incident unfolded Sunday night after Mr. Rock made a joke about the buzzed hair of Mr. Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia, a condition that leads to hair loss. Mr. Smith responded by walking onto the stage of the Dolby Theater and slapping Mr. Rock, leaving stunned viewers wondering at first if the blow might have been scripted until Mr. Smith returned to his seat and warned him to stop talking about his wife, using expletives.Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith in the audience at the ceremony.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesBehind the scenes at the Oscars, there were serious discussions about removing Mr. Smith from the theater, according to two industry officials with knowledge of the situation who were granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. But time was short, because the best actor award, which Mr. Smith was heavily favored to win, was fast approaching, one noted — and stakeholders had varying opinions on how to proceed. There was also concern about further disrupting the live broadcast, the other said.As the show went on, the actor Denzel Washington spoke with Mr. Smith during a commercial break. Not long after that Mr. Smith won best actor. (Mr. Smith said in his speech that Mr. Washington had told him: “At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you.”) In his onstage remarks, Mr. Smith apologized to the academy and to his fellow nominees — but not to Mr. Rock — and defiantly sought to draw parallels to the character he played in “King Richard,” the father of Venus and Serena Williams.“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,” Mr. Smith said.He received a standing ovation.Mr. Smith said in his statement Monday that he had reacted emotionally because a joke about his wife’s medical condition was “too much for me to bear.” Mr. Smith also apologized to the Academy, the show’s producers, the viewers, the people who worked on “King Richard” and the Williams family.“I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us,” he said. “I am a work in progress.”The incident overshadowed the awards. On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” on Monday George Stephanopoulos described it as “something we have never seen before, something that is very hard to process: Will Smith, walking up onto that stage after Chris Rock told a joke about his wife — simply assaulting Chris Rock.”The powers-that-be at the Oscars had been intent on not repeating last year’s record-low ratings, putting a series of changes in place they had hoped would draw more viewers: installing three comic actresses as hosts, pretaping some awards to try to quicken the pace, introducing a fan-favorite award that viewers could vote on. But the broadcast became must-see television for a reason they did not anticipate.“Welp … I said it wouldn’t be boring #Oscars,” Will Packer, one of the show’s producers, tweeted after the show. He later added: “This was a very painful moment for me. On many levels.”The telecast drew a larger audience than last year’s, but interest remained depressed compared with past years. The awards show attracted 15.4 million viewers on ABC, a 56 percent improvement on the 9.85 million people who watched the 2021 event, according to ABC. Sunday night’s show was still the second least-watched Oscars ever.Comedians, who tell uncomfortable and sometimes offensive jokes for a living, raised concerns about the precedent Smith had set.“Let me tell you something, it’s a very bad practice to walk up onstage and physically assault a comedian,” Kathy Griffin tweeted. “Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theaters.”Jimmy Kimmel, the comedian and talk show host who had been the last person to host the Oscars, said on “The Bill Simmons Podcast” that he felt bad for the show’s hosts; for Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who won the best documentary feature award Mr. Rock had been presenting, and for Mr. Rock, who he said “certainly didn’t deserve that.”“In a way, I feel bad for Will Smith too, because I think he let his emotions get the better of him, and this should have been one of the great nights of his life,” Mr. Kimmel said. “And now it’s not. Was there anyone who didn’t like Will Smith an hour ago in the world? Like no one, right? Now he doesn’t have a single comedian friend — that’s for sure.”Whoopi Goldberg, who is on the academy’s board of governors and has hosted the show several times, said on “The View” on Monday that she did not think Smith’s award would be revoked, citing Mr. Rock’s decision not to press charges.“We’re not going to take that Oscar from him,” she said. “There will be consequences, I’m sure.”Mr. Rock after the incident with Mr. Smith, seated in front of him. Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesThe Los Angeles Police Department said it was aware of what it described as an incident involving “one individual slapping another” at the Oscars. The police said the person involved had “declined to file a police report.”“If the involved party desires a police report at a later date,” the police said, they would move forward and “complete an investigative report.”At least one member of the academy, Marshall Herskovitz, a former president of the Producers Guild of America, called for Mr. Smith to face disciplinary action.Two industry officials said that Mr. Rock’s joke had apparently been ad-libbed.And Bruce Vilanch, a past head writer of Oscars shows who did not work on this year’s, said: “Everything that is in the script is vetted. But if a comedian comes out onstage and ad-libs something, there’s no time to vet. I’m guessing that’s what happened last night. What I’m hearing from everybody is that this was not the material that was rehearsed.”Mr. Rock has teased the Smiths from the Oscars stage before. In 2016, when the Smiths boycotted the awards show because the nominees in the four acting categories were all white, Mr. Rock, that show’s host, joked about it. “Jada says she not coming, protesting,” he said. “I’m like, ain’t she on a TV show? Jada is going to boycott the Oscars — Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited.”Mr. Smith was not deterred from celebrating his win on Sunday night, dancing at a crowded party after the Oscars while holding his trophy, but he avoided questions about the incident. A publicist for Mr. Rock did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.Jaden Smith, one of the Smiths’ children, tweeted simply: “And That’s How We Do It.”The reaction inside and outside Hollywood ranged widely. In interviews following the show, at after-parties and on social media, Smith’s colleagues variously expressed sadness, confusion, disbelief, anger and, in some cases, empathy. Many deflected or ignored questions about the episode entirely.The actor Mark Hamill called it the ugliest Oscars moment. “Stand-up comics are very adept at handling hecklers,” he wrote on Twitter. “Violent physical assault … not so much. #UgliestOscarMoment_Ever.”One top studio executive, who declined to speak on the record, voiced disappointment in Smith and in the fact that the audience in the theater gave him a standing ovation.And Janai Nelson, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, worried aloud in a tweet that “the way casual violence was normalized tonight by a collective national audience will have consequences that we can’t even fathom in the moment.”Others seemed to defend Mr. Smith. “Many takes on here about Will Smith and Chris Rock, especially from people whose partners are not Black women (mainly white people),” the author Frederick Joseph tweeted. “I don’t care if it’s a joke or not, the amount Black women have to endure — people are tired of it. We have no idea what Jada has gone through.”And the comedian Tiffany Haddish, who starred in the movie “Girls Trip” with Ms. Pinkett Smith, said in an interview with People magazine at an after-party that she appreciated seeing Mr. Smith protect his wife.“Maybe the world might not like how it went down,” Ms. Haddish said, “but for me, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.”Even still, the day after, the prevailing reaction was mostly one of disbelief.“We’re not sure where the fallout will end up,” Ryan Seacrest said Monday on his morning show “Live With Kelly and Ryan.” “It was one of those moments that we couldn’t believe when we saw it.”Sperling reported from Los Angeles. Matt Stevens and Julia Jacobs reported from New York. More

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      Does the Academy Hate Movies? Our Critics on the 2022 Oscars.

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      Whatever you make of the slap, the telecast as a whole was a frustrating night of television that seemed based on a misunderstanding of what makes films great.Our chief film critics reflect on an Oscar night that went pretty much as expected — until it didn’t.A.O. SCOTT “The greatest night in the history of television,” said Chris Rock, a few seconds after Will Smith slapped him. Not a bad off-the-cuff punchline (so to speak). But until that moment — and Smith’s tearful, unrehearsed acceptance speech when he won best actor a short time later — it had been a dull and frustrating evening of television. Few surprises in any category (except maybe when “Belfast” won for original screenplay). Sentimentality triumphing over craft (except when Jane Campion won best director). A gnawing sense that the academy doesn’t understand movies, and maybe even hates them.MANOHLA DARGIS Bingo! Mind you, I don’t think the academy and its roughly 10,000 members hate movies; they just sometimes have really terrible taste, like everyone else, except you and me. But I think that as a TV show, the Oscars absolutely have contempt for the art, as the unfunny jokes about the hosts not finishing “The Power of the Dog” underscored.SCOTT The slap did not dispel any of that, but it did distract Twitter, which convulsed with takes about what it meant. We can get to that (or not!), but for the moment I want to stick with the question of what kind of television this was. American viewers did not actually see it on their screens. When the image froze, I thought my laptop had crashed, and it was only when people started posting uncensored video from Australian and Japanese broadcasts that anyone here knew what had happened. During Smith’s speech, the cameras cut away to Venus and Serena Williams, and then to the Oscars logo. Here was a spontaneous, complicated, emotionally intense moment — serving up more raw and painful human drama than “CODA,” “Belfast” and “King Richard” combined — and ABC just could not deal with it.DARGIS To be uncharacteristically fair about my favorite hate-watch, ABC wasn’t alone in not being able to deal. Initially, when ABC cut off Smith’s rebuke to Rock, I thought that the janky antenna that I use the rare times I watch broadcast TV had failed. Like a lot of people, I don’t watch as much traditional TV as I once did, which is part of the show’s and ABC’s intractable problem. That the network or the Oscar producers, or both, lost their nerve wasn’t surprising given that they’d already failed by not presenting some of the essential awards live.Will Smith’s slapping Chris Rock clearly overshadowed the evening.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesSCOTT The way the “below-the-line” awards were banished to an earlier, pre-broadcast ceremony and then spliced into the main event was nonsensical. Are the acceptance speeches of cinematographers and costume designers inherently more telegenic than those of composers and editors? As it happens, Jenny Beavan, winning her third costume Oscar (for “Cruella”), was glamorous and genuine and funny, and her celebration of craft and professionalism represents the best of the Oscars. So do the honorary awards, which were held Friday night and featured Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson hugging and cracking each other up as Washington presented Jackson with his trophy. Why wouldn’t the TV audience want to see that?DARGIS Even so, this year’s event started off pretty OK, particularly given horrific world events. One of the three hosts, Regina Hall, deftly handled the bit about administering faux Covid tests to some of the men in the room, even as the camera focused on her rear. It was stupid Oscar shtick — surprise — yet as it went on (and on), I kept thinking about the fact that the United States alone is approaching one million pandemic deaths. I’m not sure how the show could have addressed Covid’s grievous toll, but asking for a moment of silence, of all things — as it did with Ukraine — might have been worse.Of course now all the focus is on the slap, which was embarrassing and very sad. Smith seems to be going through something deeply complicated, to the point that he sabotaged his own triumph. As for the rest of the show, it lacked dramatic shape and momentum, partly because those canned awards would have given the live event more tension and emotion. There was no buildup, just bits … and an obituary musical number. Among other things, the show didn’t give viewers a coherent point of focus, the way it has when Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep sat front and center representing the art and industry, a place that this year should have been reserved for Denzel Washington, who looked mighty uncomfortable in that chair.SCOTT The endless pre-Oscar hand-wringing about how to shore up ratings and make the show more relevant demonstrates a lack of confidence that was very much in evidence last night. The hosts were fine. The movies that won were fine.Except for those idiotic “fan” awards. They were, somewhat hilariously, hijacked by the Zack Snyder Twitter militia. The most memorable movie moment (of all time? of the century? it was hard to tell) is supposedly that scene from “Justice League” when Flash enters the Speed Force. And the most popular movie (of 2021) was “Army of the Dead,” which beat other curiosities like “Cinderella” and “Minimata.”Is this the death of cinema?DARGIS LOL. (Also: Did you see “Minimata”?) The Oscars are a TV show, and while they reflect certain industry trends, like the transformation of the big studios, they don’t have much to do with cinema, which is doing just fine, as you and I keep saying and writing and muttering. The Oscars generated lower ratings and angry snark when independent films like “Breaking the Waves” and “Secrets & Lies” received nominations in 1997 — “The English Patient” swept, winning best picture — only to rebound with “Titanic” the next year.SCOTT The more things change, the more they stay the same. One thing that has gotten worse is the unfortunate journalistic habit of equating the state of the Oscars with the state of movies. Even when television is great, the Emmys are terrible. Nobody seriously thinks that bad Grammy Awards spell the death of pop music, or that a given year’s National Book Awards reveal much about the health of literature. But movie journalism has elevated the Oscars to a position of absurd importance.“CODA” was the first Sundance premiere to win best picture.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesDARGIS As an epic-sized commercial for movies, the Oscars just don’t often make good television. That’s kind of funny-strange given how many movies look like TV, which means it’s time to bring up Apple TV+’s “CODA.” It’s hard to believe it would have won best picture if voters had been forced to watch it on the big screen, though maybe it would have. It’s a nice, little, pedestrian heart-tugger, so it fits perfectly on TV. It’s the kind of movie that we’ve seen repeatedly at Sundance; but it isn’t the kind that inspires colleagues to proselytize about it the way they did with, say, “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” But that’s the Oscars, right? One year, “Moonlight” wins; two years later, “Green Book” does — and then, boom, “Parasite” wins.SCOTT “CODA” is the first best picture winner to premiere at Sundance, as well as the first to be distributed by a streaming service. It also won all of the three categories in which it was nominated, none of which were for lead performances or technical achievements, making it a fascinating outlier. Its victories — especially Troy Kotsur’s supporting actor win, a wonderful Oscar-night moment — are part of the academy’s continuing efforts to present a more diverse, inclusive face to the world.And it’s worth pointing out that the 94th Oscars were not so white, or so male, as most of their precursors. For the second year in a row — and the third time ever — the best director is a woman. The best picture was directed by a (different) woman. The best documentary feature is the work of a Black filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. The best supporting actress, Ariana DeBose, is the first openly queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar. You and I have been covering Hollywood long enough to be wary of overstating its progress or believing its promises, but I also wonder if the defensiveness and insecurity that surround the Oscar broadcast amounts to a form of backlash.DARGIS Both Kotsur’s and DeBose’s acceptance speeches were lovely, and each offered moments of grace during an otherwise often awkward, poorly paced slog of three and a half hours, plus change. As to your wondering if the increasing diversity of the awards winners has provoked a backlash — well, yeah, I bet! The movie industry is changing and is no longer the citadel of white male power that it once was. At the same time, the old guard is holding strong and the Oscars often seem more like aspirational visions of the industry rather than its reality.SCOTT Aspirational and also, as we saw last night, wildly dysfunctional. That’s entertainment! More

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      Will Smith Hits Chris Rock at the Oscars. Here’s What We Know.

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      In an apparently unscripted moment that stunned viewers and audience members alike, Will Smith strode onstage and hit Chris Rock in the face after the comedian made a joke about the actor’s wife while presenting the best documentary award at the Oscars.Rock joked that Smith’s wife, the actress Jada Pinkett Smith, was in “G.I. Jane 2,” seemingly a reference to her short-cropped hair. Pinkett Smith has said she has alopecia, a condition that leads to hair loss.Smith yelled and cursed at Rock after returning to his seat, demanding that Rock not speak about his wife.During the heated exchange, the telecast went silent on many screens, leaving confusion about what had happened and what had been said.Rock, a presenter at the show, had been firing off jokes during a mini-monologue when he got around to actors and their spouses.“Javier Bardem and his wife are both nominated,” Rock said. “Now, if she loses, he can’t win.”“He is praying that Will Smith wins, like, please, lord,” Rock continued. “Jada, I love you. ‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it, all right?”The camera panned to Smith, who appeared initially to be smiling. But the joke drew a lukewarm reception, prompting Rock to add: “That was a nice one!”Jada Pinkett Smith immediately rolled her eyes at the joke. Pinkett Smith has been open about her alopecia, posting a video on Instagram last year to explain how the hair loss had progressed. She first shared the diagnosis in 2018 on an episode of her talk show, when she said she had decided to cut her hair short after handfuls of it came out in the shower. On Sunday, after Rock spoke, her husband was soon out of his seat. Smith walked down the runway toward the stage.“Uh-oh,” Rock said. Smith approached, and hit Rock; the impact could be heard through his microphone.Uncensored broadcasts of the telecast outside the United States showed that after being struck, Rock, trying to keep the mood light, acknowledged that Smith had “smacked” him, using an expletive to describe how hard he had been hit.Back in his seat, Smith told Rock: “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!”Rock responded, “Wow dude, it was a ‘G.I. Jane’ joke.”Smith then repeated his demand.Looking shocked, Rock said, “That was the greatest night in the history of television,” then moved on to awarding the Oscar for documentary feature to “Summer of Soul.”Soon after, Smith won the Oscar for best actor, and he gave an emotional speech in which he said: “I want to apologize to the academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees.”At the end of his speech, Will Smith added: “Thank you. I hope the academy invites me back.”The academy later issued a statement on Twitter that mentioned neither Smith nor Rock, but said “The academy does not condone violence of any form.”In a statement after the evening’s telecast had concluded, the Los Angeles Police Department said it was aware of what it said was an incident involving “one individual slapping another” at the Oscars. The police said the person involved had “declined to file a police report.”“If the involved party desires a police report at a later date,” the police said, they would move forward and “complete an investigative report.” More

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      Will Smith’s Full Oscars Speech for Best Actor 

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      Will Smith, who started his acting career in 1990 in an after-school special on ABC and became one of Hollywood’s most bankable and prolific action stars and producers, finally achieved the one thing that had always eluded him: He won an Oscar.Moments earlier, Smith had brought the ceremony to an awkward standstill by striding onstage from his seat and — in what at first seemed like a preplanned bit — hitting Chris Rock, who had just cracked a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. (“Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait,” Rock had said, an apparent reference to her short-cropped hair.)Smith then returned to his seat and angrily shouted twice at Rock to not utter his wife’s name, using an expletive that was bleeped by ABC. A rattled Rock tried to regain his composure, and a stunned audience, both in the theater and at home, tried to figure out what happened. “Right now, we’re moving on with love,” Sean Combs said, arriving onstage soon afterward to introduce a celebratory montage from “The Godfather.”Smith was celebrated for his performance in “King Richard” as the fiery, flawed coach and father of the tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams — mirroring best actor wins at major film awards ceremonies this year, including the Critics Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,” an emotional Smith said in his acceptance speech. “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.”He went on to apologize to the academy and to his fellow nominees, but not to Rock. “This is a beautiful moment,” Smith said. “And I’m not crying for winning an award. It’s not about winning an award for me, it’s about being able to shine a light on all of the people.”Smith was previously nominated for best actor in 2007 for “The Pursuit of Happyness” and in 2002 for “Ali.” Rather incredibly, given the lack of diversity in the movie business, he lost to a Black actor in both instances: first to Denzel Washington and then to Forest Whitaker.In 2016, however, Smith became part of the #OscarsSoWhite movement. After nominating only white actors and actresses for its awards in 2015, drawing widespread criticism, the academy did it again the next year — overlooking performances like the one Smith gave in “Concussion.” Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, was outspoken about what many people saw as an urgent need for the academy to become more inclusive. Smith was less pointed in his criticism, but joined her in a boycott of the ceremony. In the years since, the academy has dramatically expanded its voting membership.Also nominated for best actor on Sunday were Washington (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”), Javier Bardem (“Being the Ricardos”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Power of the Dog”) and a hard-campaigning Andrew Garfield (“Tick, Tick … Boom!”).Here is Smith’s entire acceptance speech:Oh, man. 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 most strongest, most delicate people I’ve ever met. I got to protect Saniyya [Sidney] and Demi [Singleton], the two actresses that played Venus and Serena.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 pretend like that’s OK. But Richard Williams, and what I loved — thank you, D. — Denzel [Washington] said to me a few minutes ago, he said, “At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you.”It’s like, I want to be a vessel for love. I want to say thank you to Venus and Serena — I just spit, I hope they didn’t see that on TV — I want to say thank you to Venus and Serena and the entire Williams family for entrusting me with your story. That’s what I want to do. I want to be an ambassador for that kind of love and care and concern.I want to apologize to the Academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees. This is a beautiful moment, and I’m not crying for winning an award. It’s not about winning an award for me. It’s about being able to shine light on all of the people: Tim [White] and Trevor [White] and Zach [Baylin] and Saniyya and Demi and Aunjanue and the entire cast and crew of “King Richard” and Venus and Serena, the entire Williams family. Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said. I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.To my mother, a lot of this moment is really complicated for me, but to my mother — she didn’t want to come out; she has her knitting friends, she has a knitting crew that she’s in Philly watching with. Being able to love and care for my mother and my family and my wife. I’m taking up too much time. Thank you for this honor. Thank you for this moment. And thank you on behalf of Richard and Oracene [Price] and the entire Williams family. Thank you. I hope the Academy invites me back. Thank you.Nancy Coleman More