Steve Coogan accuses Will Smith of ‘appalling arrogance’ over Oscars slap

Actor says he agrees with Jim Carrey’s strongly worded condemnation of Smith

Steve Coogan has accused Will Smith of “appalling arrogance” after the actor slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.

Smith walked on stage to slap Rock, who was presenting an award at the film awards ceremony, after the comedian made a joke about his wife, actor Jada Pinkett Smith.

On Friday (1 April), five days after the incident, Smith made the decision to step down from the Academy following reports he would face disciplinary action. The decision has stripped him of his membership to the Oscars awards body.

Coogan became the latest celebrity to weigh in on the altercation when he was asked about it during a recent appearance on BBC Radio’s Loose Ends programme.

Asked for his thoughts about the incident, the Alan Partridge star said: “First of all, Hollywood showed itself at its absolute worst. For all the kind of moral posturing that Hollywood has... I think all Hollywood’s moral posturing are always commercial decisions and if they’re moral, they’re dressed up as moral but they are always bottomline decisions.”

He went on to say he was “with Rob Reiner and Jim Carrey on this”, adding that “I think whether Chris Rock wants to press charges should be academic”.

Producer, actor and director Reiner has previously said that Smith “owes Chris Rock a huge apology”, stating that “there is no excuse for what he did”.

In the wake of the on-stage incident, Carrey said Smith “should have been” arrested for his actions, and that he would have sued the actor for $200m (£153m).

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The Ace Ventura star later said that he sees Smith’s behaviour as “a larger issue”.

When host Clive Anderson said: “There is nothing stopping the police from arresting [Smith] there and then,” Coogan interjected to say: “There’s over a thousand witnesses, they wouldn’t have a problem securing a conviction.”

Speaking of Smith’s behaviour, he added: “I think it’s appalling arrogance. The epitome of all that is twisted and horrible about Hollywood.

“Having said that, frankly you either believe in freedom of expression or you don’t. We do have rules. You can’t go up to someone as it were and be racist in to their face. You can’t hide behind freedom of expression.

“We do have ways of trying to curtail obnoxious behaviour. But freedom of expression is to be guarded at all costs.”

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Asked whether he had experienced anything like what happened to Rock at the Oscars, Coogan spoke about his past stand-up gigs at The Tunnel Club, which he called “a baptism by fire”.

“It was an almost right of initiation if you were on the comedy circuit,” he said. The comedian recalled receiving “abuse” and hearing “awful obscenities”.

He said: “They didn’t have glasses anymore. They had plastic because so many were thrown on the stage, and I got various plastic things lobbed at me and a chair thrown at me as I was trying to do nuanced stuff.”

Elsewhere on the radio show, Coogan said he often used his character Alan Partridge as a “trojan horse” for expressing some of his own views.