Will Smith news - live: ‘Heartbroken’ actor’s resignation from the Academy accepted by organisation
Best Actor winner resigns from Motion Picture Academy, saying list of those harmed by Oscars slap is “long and includes Chris, his family, many of my dear friends and loved ones”
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Your support makes all the difference.Nearly a week after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, Hollywood is still abuzz with activity, as celebrities weigh in on the incident, while a “formal review” of the incident began at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Now they’ve got something new to talk about: the King Richard star has resigned from the Academy, which puts on the Oscars.
“The list of those I have hurt is long and includes Chris, his family, many of my dear friends and loved ones, all those in attendance, and global audiences at home,” Smith said in a statement. “I betrayed the trust of the Academy. I deprived other nominees and winners of their opportunity to celebrate and be celebrated for their extraordinary work. I am heartbroken.”
It’s the latest sign of friction between the Hollywood heavyweight and the film group.
Smith was reportedly asked to leave the Oscars after breaking the Academy’s code of conduct, but he refused.
Though Mr Rock has declined to press charges against Mr Smith, on Wednesday, during the sold-out Boston show of his Ego Death tour, Rock finally addressed the altercation and said he was “still processing.”
“I’m still processing what happened, so at some point I’ll talk about that s***,” the comedian also said on stage, adding, “It’ll be serious. It’ll be funny, but right now I’m going to tell some jokes.”
You can follow all the developments about the “slap that was heard around the world” in our live blog below...
Ricky Gervais sounds off on whether Will Smith would’ve slapped him
Seemingly everyone has aired their opinion already on how Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, so it should come as no surprise that comedian Ricky Gervais, who has made a career out of telling hair-raising jokes at awards ceremonies, has offered up his two cents.
It began when Spinal Tap actor Michael McKean on Tuesday posed a “thought experiment” on Twitter: “Same scene, same joke, but replace Chris Rock with Ricky Gervais.”
“You’re basically asking if he would slap a much heavier, angrier, drunker man,” the five-time Golden Globes host responded.
Daisy Maldonado has the full story for indy100.
Ricky Gervais responds to question asking whether Will Smith would have slapped him
Ricky Gervais has spoken about what would have happened if he were in Chris Rock's shoes at the Oscars this year. Discussing the slap that was heard across the world, Gervais suggested that he would have taken a much different approach if he were behind Will Smith's hand.As a five-time host of the G...
‘Crazy for this one’: Customers react to Fashion Nova text reference to the Will Smith slap
Fashion Nova has shocked its customers with a text message about a sale, which featured a reference to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock across the face at this year’s Oscars.
While onstage at the Dolby Theatre Sunday night, Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia, comparing her bald head to the character in the movie GI Jane. The joke was not well-received by Smith, as he walked onto the stage and slapped Rock across the face.
That following day, Fashion Nova sent out a text to its customers about a one-day sale, using the words “slapped” and “Rock,” in reference to the surprising Oscars incident, which has been shared on social media.
“Fashion Nova: We SLAPPED 40 per cent Off the ENTIRE Site!,” the text reads, posted via Twitter. “It’s Time To ROCK New Spring Looks…Today Only.”
Amber Raiken has more on this bizarre marketing scheme.
Customers react to Fashion Nova text referencing Will Smith slapping Chris Rock
‘The Fashion Nova marketing team will stop at nothing,’ one respondent tweets
Oscars audience soared by 550,000 after The Slap
It might not have been in the plan, but Will Smith slapping Chris Rock gave the Oscars audience a big boost, according to television data.
The audience tuning into the Academy Awards jumped by roughly 550,000 to a total of 17.4 million people in the ten minutes after the slap, according to a New York Times analysis of Nielsen television numbers.
Still, that wasn’t the peak for the night. Nearly 17.7 viewers watched Troy Katsur, the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar, accept his award for best supporting actor earlier in the show.
Chris Rock’s Oscars joke about Will Smith’s wife Jada not scripted, insider says
‘You started to realise this is real once Chris, who certainly knows the limits of broadcast standards, said, ‘Will Smith slapped the s*** out of me’
Did Chris Rock suffer the curse of the Scottish Play? ‘Macbeth’ theory gains traction on Twitter
A day after Will Smith publicly slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, some on Twitter have a theory about what caused the comedian’s misfortune: he said “Macbeth.”
According to an old superstition, one must never utter the name of the Shakespeare character in a theatre, except to perform or rehearse a line from the play. Instead, the monarch must be referred to as “the Scottish king” or “the Scottish lord,” and the work itself as “the Scottish play.” Otherwise, one invites disaster.
And disaster certainly befell the 94th Academy Awards, where an enraged Smith walked onstage and struck Rock across the face, then returned to his seat and loudly cursed him out from there. Interestingly, the moment was almost immediately preceded by the comedian mentioning Macbeth.
“Denzel!” Rock called from the stage to Denzel Washington, who appeared last year in Joel Coen’s film adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy. “Macbeth! Loved it!”
Nathan Place has the story.
Twitter theorises that ‘Macbeth’ curse caused Chris Rock slap
An ancient superstition holds that saying the name of the play in a theatre – as Chris Rock did just before Will Smith’s slap – triggers a terrible curse
Lest we forget: This was also Samuel L Jackson’s big night
Discussion around the Oscars has, not very shockingly, centered around Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, but some on Twitter are highlighting one of the lesser-told stories of the awards season: How legendary actor Samuel L Jackson finally won his Oscar.
The Pulp Fiction star was awarded a lifetime achievement award on Friday during a non-televised portion of the Oscars weekend.
Oscars bartender shares behind-the-scenes insight into award ceremony: ‘Everybody stopped drinking after slap’
An Oscars bartender has shared insight into the star-studded awards ceremony, and which celebrities were the nicest at the 94th annual Academy Awards.
The Oscars took place on Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in California, with the awards ceremony encompassing a number of notable moments, such as an incident which saw Will Smith smack Chris Rock after the comedian made a joke about the actor’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
According to bartender Daniel Ralston, who reportedly worked the event, the moment led to shift in the atmosphere at the awards ceremony, as he claimed on Twitter that “everybody stopped drinking after the slap”.
“Bartended the Oscars. Everybody stopped drinking after the slap,” Ralston wrote on Twitter on 28 March.
Chelsea Ritschel has the details for Indy/Life.
Oscars bartender shares behind-the-scenes insight into award ceremony
‘Nicest celebs of the night were Reba and Rami Malek’
What are our Voices columnists saying about The Slap?
Charles Arrowsmith explored how Will Smith’s past may help explain what happened.
What went wrong? Who can say. Smith writes in his memoir that his perfectionist obsession with success is born of insecurity. His was a childhood scarred by violence and a complicated relationship with an abusive father. His straight-edge, upbeat persona was not just the key to his early accomplishments in hip-hop, TV, and movies but also a defense mechanism. “I’d conflated being successful with being loved and being happy,” he writes. Perhaps seeing his wife being insulted at the moment he reached the pinnacle of his achievements was a knock he felt he simply couldn’t abide.
What Will Smith’s memoir tells us about his Oscars slap — and his teary apology
Smith’s apology — ‘love will make you do crazy things’ — as he accepted the Best Actor award was rhetorically unsettling, but it also offered a kind of tragic explanation
Meanwhile, Victoria Gagliardo-Silver considered the particular nastiness of Chris Rock’s joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, given his past work on a documentary highlighting cultural stigmas around Black women’s appearances.
Chris Rock was uniquely positioned to be sensitive about this issue, which is what makes his joke even more difficult to understand. In 2009, he fronted a documentary called Good Hair that explored the ways in which Black women’s hair is stigmatized in western societies. At the time, he explained the reasoning for why he wanted to make the documentary, saying that his three-year-old daughter had asked him, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” That was supposedly a lightbulb moment for Rock, where he came to realize the pressure Black women are under to have hair that meets an unattainable standard.
Chris Rock made a documentary about Black women’s hair — then undermined everything
‘I was in the shower one day and had just handfuls of hair in my hands and I was just like, ‘Oh my God, am I going bald?’’ Jada Pinkett Smith said on her talk show. ‘It was one of those times in my life where I was literally shaking in fear.’
Slap-happy: Twitter users keep tagging the wrong Will Smith over Oscars altercation
A man who shares the same name as Will Smith, and is verified on Twitter, has been the target of abuse on the social media platform since Sunday evening as users continue to mistake him for the King Richard actor.
Those upset by Sunday night’s events have been voicing their criticisms of Smith on Twitter.
Unfortunately, the actor does not appear to have a verified Twitter account, and social media users have been levelling their comments at a non-famous man who shares his name.
Will Smith, a podcast host who works in communications for video game developer Stray Bombay, wrote in a tweet on Sunday: “Real talk, I’m not the person you’re upset/happy with. I make podcasts and video games for a living.
Read more of Saman Javed’s story for Indy/Life.
Twitter users keep tagging the wrong Will Smith over Oscars incident with Chris Rock
Non-famous Will Smith has gained more than 100,000 followers since the incident
Another Will Smith critic weighs in: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Scores of celebrities have voiced their opinion on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, with many offering harsh criticism of the King Richard actor’s behaviour.
NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the latest to join the fray.
In a post Tuesday on his Substack blog, the former Los Angeles Laker big man wrote that, “When Will Smith stormed onto the Oscar stage to strike Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife’s short hair, he did a lot more damage than just to Rock’s face. With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community.”
Here’s how others have reacted to The Slap.
Stars react to Will Smith hitting Chris Rock at the Oscars
Director Judd Apatow deleted a tweet that received criticism after he claimed Smith ‘could have killed’ Rock
Zoë Kravitz is not impressed with The Slap
The Batman star Zoë Kravitz is the latest celebrity to voice her displeasure at Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.
The actress posted a photo to Instagram on Tuesday of herself on the red carpet, looking nonplussed.
“Here’s a picture of my dress at the show where we are apparently assaulting people on stage now,” she wrote.
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