Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony for a joke the comedian made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. The former “Fresh Price of Bel Air” star initially laughed at Rock’s “G.I. Jane” joke, but when Pinkett Smith rolled her eyes, Will Smith then walked on stage and struck Rock with an open hand. “Oh wow,” Rock said as Smith made his way back to his seat. “Will Smith just smacked the sh*t out of me,” the host said. “Keep my wife’s name out your f*cking mouth!” Smith yelled up to the stage at Rock after taking his seat again. “Wow, dude, it was a G.I. Jane joke,” said Rock — to which Smith replied once again, “Keep my wife’s name out your f*cking mouth!”
Smith won the award for “Best Actor” later in the night for his starring role in “King Richard,” and he apologized to everyone but Rock. “I want to apologize to the Academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees,” Smith said. He added: “Art imitates life: I look like the crazy father. Just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.”
Ted Nugent commented on the scene during his Monday edition of “The Nightly Nuge.” “Number one, black-on-black crime is quite visible [laughs] — it’s everywhere you go, even at the Oscars. We got broadcast globally black-on-black crime,” Nugent said. “Okay, there’s a number of dynamics that I would like to address. Number one, Chris Rock has had some brilliant moments where he’s identified the failure of his culture to respond adequately and properly when pulled over by the police and how to not get killed. So we applaud Chris Rock on those rare moments where logic surfaced in his life.”
“With all due respect, I got to hang out at the Comedy Store with Richard Pryor, Rodney Dangerfield, Sam Kinison [and] Robin Williams, so I know that humor is supposed to be irreverent and outrageous. So Chris Rock’s whole career is based on outrageous and irreverent. Certainly Will Smith knows that. And there’s another time in our culture where if you were disrespectful to my woman that I should be able to coldc*ck you flat out in the street. Now, I have been attacked, my family, my mother, my wife, my children have been attacked publicly because I ‘murder innocent animals,’ which I suspect would be considered barbecue in conscientious families’ lives. And you know what I do? Because I’ve been armed since I’m 17, and I trained with the greatest warriors of all time, and when people spit at me, when they attack the honor of my family members, you know what I do? I back away and leave. Because unless there’s actual life-threatening conditions, I will not engage.
“So there’s a two-edged sword here,” Ted added. “Number one, I’m a huge fan of Will Smith and I’m a huge fan of Chris Rock in many ways, when I want a good guffaw or I wanna see a super action actor in a brilliant role, which Will Smith seems to have dominated over the years. But to go ahead and drop your sense of social norms in the clusterbuck [sic] of 2020 and to walk up onstage for the whole world to see and slap Chris Rock… Will, prioritize. That’s not the hill you want to climb right now.”
Nugent added: “If Will Smith would have been a white guy hitting Chris Rock, he would have probably been taken out in handcuffs. But I’m glad that the whole world got to see it … “But those days of defending the honor of our loved ones, in all practicality, those days are over. Because if you defend the honor of your wife in such a violent manner, you’re supposed to go to jail; you’re supposed to be charged with assault and battery. That was assault and battery under any jurisdictional definition.
