Will Smith is finally opening up about his Oscars slap moment, which led to him receiving major backlash from the industry and fans.
The 54-year-old actor slapped Chris Rock on stage at the Academy Awards earlier this year. Minutes later, he won his first Oscar. The super star retreated from the public eye following the incident.
Now, Will is back to promote his new film Emancipation. He made his first talk show appearance post-Academy Awards on The Daily Show. In the interview, which aired on Monday (November 28), he spoke to host Trevor Noah about what happened.
Will spoke about the “rage” he felt that evening:
“That was a horrific night, as you can imagine. There’s many nuances and complexities to it. But at the end of the day, I just — I lost it, you know? I was going through something that night, you know?
Not that that justifies my behavior at all… It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know? All of that just bubbled up in that moment. That is not who I want to be.”
He also spoke about the consequences that he faced from what he did:
“I was gone. That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time.
My nephew is nine. He is the sweetest little boy. We came home. He had stayed up late to see his uncle Will and we are sitting in my kitchen and he is on my lap and he is holding the Oscar and he is just like, ‘Why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?’ Damn it. Why are you trying to Oprah me?”
Will stated that nothing “justifies my behavior” at all, saying:
“You’re asking, what did I learn? And it’s that we just got to be nice to each other, man. You know, it’s like, it’s hard. And I guess the thing that was most painful for me is, I took my hard and made it hard for other people.
You know, it’s like, I understood the idea when they say hurt people hurt people.”
