Will Smith Opens Up About Slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars: 'I Lost It'

Mar. 15, 2025

Will Smith.Photo: David Livingston/Getty

Will Smithis opening up about slappingChris Rockat the 2022Academy Awards.

“There’s many nuances and complexities to it, you know, but at the end of the day, I just — I lost it,” Smith said onThe Daily Show with Trevor NoahMonday — his first since he struck Rock.

“I guess what I would say, you just never know what somebody’s going through,” he added in a more serious tone about themoment he slapped Rockfor directing a joke toward his wifeJada Pinkett Smith.

“You just don’t know what’s going on with people,” added Smith, 54. “And I was going through something that night.”

“Not that that justifies my behavior at all.”

Will Smith and Trevor Noah.The Daily Show with Trevor Noah/Youtube

The actor explained in a statement days later that the punchline was “too much for me to bear"and he “reacted emotionally.”

Speaking to Noah, Monday he also revealed the impact the events had on those closest to him — including his young nephew Dom, 9, who “stayed up late to see his Uncle Will” at the 94th Academy Awards.

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“Why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?” he said Dom asked him when he got home.

“We just got to be nice to each other, man,” the father of three stated in reflection about what he learned from the incident. “It’s hard. And I guess the thing that’s the most painful for me is I took my heart and I made it hard for other people.”

Will Smith onThe Daily Show with Trevor Noah.The Daily Show with Trevor Noah/Youtube

“It was a lot of things,” he said about the motivation for his actions and his past history of fearing conflict. “It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother. All of that bubbled up in that moment … You know, just, that’s not who I want to be … I was gone. That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time.”

“I have no independent recollection…” Smith added in reference to Noah describing the awards show as one of the “best and worst” nights of the actor’s life. “Yeah, that was a horrific night, as you can imagine,” said Smith.

In the weeks following the show, Smithresigned from the Academyof Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was eventuallybanned from attending Academy eventsfor a decade. He has sinceapologized multiple times for his actions, including to Rock.

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TheMen In Blackactor is also about to return to the big screen for the first time sincethe Oscarsin the slavery epicEmancipation, for which he is still technically eligible to be nominated for another Academy Award.

“But he wouldn’t be able to accept the award in person if he were to win,” Entertainment Weekly Awards Correspondent Dave Karger tells PEOPLE.

The movie sees Smith star as Peter, a man whose escape from slavery forces him to rely “on his wits, unwavering faith and deep love for his family” as he runs from slave hunters through Louisiana.

One image from the set of photos called “The Scourged Back” shows the man’s wounded back after a severe whipping from his enslavers — a photograph that “ultimately contributed to growing public opposition to slavery,” according to the synopsis.

“American slavery was one of the most brutal aspects of human history,” Smith told Noah Monday. “It was something that was so incomprehensible. It’s hard to understand the level of human cruelty.”

source: people.com