It’s been almost a year since Will Smith beat Chris Rock to the Oscars. As a result, Smith is not expected to attend the 95th Annual Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night. In normal circumstances, Smith would be one of the main award presenters at this year’s ceremony. He won the best actor for his role in ‘King Richard’ last year. Traditionally, previous year’s winners return to present the awards. However, this will not be the case for the 2023 event. Smith teased Rock onstage at the 94th Annual Awards when the comedian, one of the evening’s presenters, made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith shaving her head. Pinkett Smith has spoken publicly about her struggle with hair loss due to alopecia, although Rock said she was unaware of the condition when she joked, “Jada, I love you. ‘G.I. Jane 2, I can’t wait to see you.
In the days following the sleepover, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to ban Smith from attending any academy event for the next 10 years. Smith also pre-emptively resigned from the Academy the day before his ban, later saying “I accept and respect the decision of the Academy”.
Shortly after the Rock incident, Smith returned to the stage to accept his first Oscar win. In his speech, Smith associated the act with his “King Richard,” calling him “fierce protector of his family.”
“Love makes you do crazy things,” he said, and also tearfully added: “I want to apologize to the Academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees.”
Smith apologized to Rock in several social media posts, starting with an Instagram note that was shared the day after the incident.
“I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be,” Smith wrote.
He also apologized to “the Academy, the producers of the film, all the participants and everyone watching around the world”, as well as the Williams family and the team of “King Richard.” otherwise, a wonderful journey for all of us,” he concluded.
Although Smith was banned from Academy events for the next ten years, the actor was still eligible to be nominated; he will not be able to accept gifts himself. Smith was not nominated for any awards at the 2023 Oscars and has kept a low profile in the months since then.
On the other hand, the March 4 premiere of Rock’s Netflix comedy special “Selective Outrage” placed the spotlight on the aftermath of the incident.
“I tried to call the motherfucker. I tried to call that man and give him my condolences. He didn’t pick up for me,” Rock said. “Everybody called him a bitch and who does he hit? Me.”
Rock also revealed that the rift between him and the Smith family began to grow at the 2016 Oscars, which he hosted. That year, Pinkett Smith called for a boycott because of the lack of diversity in the election. “He said [I] should stop because Will wasn’t nominated for ‘Concussion’. What the fuck? So I made a few jokes about it. Who cares? It’s like that. He started it. I finished it. No one chooses the beast. He started this thing. No one took it away from him.
Regarding the Oscars, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences CEO Bill Kramer confirmed in an interview with Time magazine that the organization has created a new “crisis team” to avoid and manage any potential threats immediately. Academy president Janet Yang said the group’s response to the incident was not immediate.
“We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place,” Kramer said. “We’ve run many scenarios. So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now but that we’re planning for just in case it does happen.”
