Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars this year has turned out to be biggest talking point from the ceremony.
Actor Neetu Kapoor joked about the incident and said that women are the ones who are accused of not controlling their emotions. Will slapped Chris for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith, though he later apologised for the same.
Soon after the ceremony, Neetu took to her Instagram Stories to share her reaction to the incident. Sharing the viral picture of Will slapping Chris, Neetu wrote, “And they say women can never control their emotions…”
Varun Dhawan also shared the pic on his Instagram Stories and wrote, “Wow didn’t expect that also @chrisrock has a chin.”
Singer Sophie Choudry also reacted to the incident. “Violence is never the way but cracking jokes about someone’s medical condition should not be acceptable either. This was supposed to be a career high for one of my favourite artists for a superb performance. Instead he’ll be remembered for this crazy incident,” she wrote in a tweet.
Will slapped Chris before he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor for his film King Richard. The confrontation took place after Chris joked that he was looking forward to a sequel to Jada’s film G.I. Jane. Reacting to it, Will walked up to the stage and slapped Chris. After returning to his seat, Will was heard shouting “keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth.”
The actor talked about the incident minutes later as he reached the stage to receive his trophy. Hinting at the incident, he said, “love will make you do crazy things”.
Will gave an emotional speech after he won his first Oscar. He said, “I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people… 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 you got pretend like that’s okay.”
Sharing actor Denzel Washington’s advice, he said, “Thank you Denzel, who said to me a few minutes ago… he said, ‘at your highest moment, be careful, that’s when the devil comes for you.’”
Apologising for the incident, he said, “I just hope they didn’t see that on TV. I want to say thank you to Venus and Serena and the entire Williams family for trusting me with your story. That’s what I want to do. I want to be an ambassador of that kind of love and care and concern. I want to apologise to the Academy. I want to apologise to my all my fellow nominees.
“Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things,” he added.