Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Will Smith punches Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars.

999 replies

CheeseMuffin · 28/03/2022 04:10

I think I speak for us all when I ask WTF just happened?

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/27/will-smith-punch-chris-rock-wife-joke-gi-jane-video-oscars

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
princesssparklepants · 28/03/2022 09:48

I'm a big will smith fan, but wow I'm so shocked.... he usually comes across so calm.

I only watched a few seconds of his acceptance speech, and all stuff about doing what god has sent him to do..... just seems so tone deaf and egotistical. Like there are bigger things going on in the world, but yeah god is putting all that aside to ask you to act in some films!

jungledoc · 28/03/2022 09:49

It’s a slippery slope when physical assault becomes ok - regardless of the provocation.

Exactly.

SueSaid · 28/03/2022 09:50

'If someone took the piss out of my husbands illness, I'd want to punch them too'

There's probably times we all feel like slapping folk. But you don't. You speak to them and act like civilised grown ups.

Alondra · 28/03/2022 09:50

@DebenhamsHadSomeLovelyStuff

Its nothing to do with being a man If someone took the piss out of my husbands illness, I'd want to punch them too My children know never to make rude/personal remarks about people. *@Motherdare*, so yes I am thanks
Jada is not ill. She has alopecia, similar to many men being bald and there are thousands of jokes about them.

This is the Oscars where everyone should expect to be the target from an unfunny joke. It's been happening forever.

Lets not go over dramatic in confusing alopecia with a serious illness.

AnastasiaRomanov · 28/03/2022 09:50

@Tidlo

Anyone who thinks this account is incredibly stupid. And white. Two black men are not going to choose to do that, they know what the world is like, they know what's coming.
You would have thought so wouldn’t you? But apparently not.
jungledoc · 28/03/2022 09:50

Not sure what was more cringeworthy the theatrical slap or the sobbing acceptance speech.

It was a bit am dram hence I think why people thought it was a joke

youvegottenminuteslynn · 28/03/2022 09:51

For those excusing this, if Rebel Wilson had made the joke would it have been OK for Will Smith to have slapped her?

JuvenileGreyFox · 28/03/2022 09:51

You can tell he has hit people like that before - it is quite a practiced move. Most people will have never hit someone in their lives and would not be able to walk up to someone and hit them so cleanly and sharply like that.

SueSaid · 28/03/2022 09:52

Tbh the 'keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth!!' twice was just as Confused as the slap.
He needs aome anger management classes.

gazprom · 28/03/2022 09:53

"all star male backdrop and her feelings and voice were entirely irrelevant before, during and after."

Is this the same Oscars that was Hosted by gay black woman Wanda Sykes, along with Amy Schumer and Regina Hall?

DidymusAmbrosius · 28/03/2022 09:53

If someone took the piss out of my husbands illness, I'd want to punch them too

Me too - but wanting to do something and doing it are two different things. I'd want to but would recognise that the urge to do so is not helpful at all, to anyone, not least of the victim of the joke. From my rather simple (and not very valuable) opinion, Will punching Chris has not helped Jada at all. Instead it has diverted the discussion of the 'joke' to murkier waters about whether or not it's ok to hit someone and deprived her of the chance to respond how she might choose to without her response being overshadowed by his.

FridayBluezzzz · 28/03/2022 09:53

Will played Ali didn’t he, so I am assuming he is a trained boxer.

AnastasiaRomanov · 28/03/2022 09:53

@JaniieJones

'If someone took the piss out of my husbands illness, I'd want to punch them too'

There's probably times we all feel like slapping folk. But you don't. You speak to them and act like civilised grown ups.

I can’t believe how many people are defending someone who used physical violence to make a point in the middle of an awards ceremony. Chris was out of line, but there are so many other ways he could have made his point. Defaulting to knee jerk violence and swearing at a public event is absolutely disgusting.
Mariposa67 · 28/03/2022 09:54

He shouldn't have done it. I've just watched the video and I would have thought it was a planned joke until he sat down and started ranting and you could see the anger in his face.

I don't really know Chris Rock but I instantly found him unbearably smug and annoying. Not justifying the slap though, totally out of order.

DebenhamsHadSomeLovelyStuff · 28/03/2022 09:54

Quite @JaniieJones, I agree
Would it be something I would do, no, but in all honesty I can see why he did it

Santiagopink · 28/03/2022 09:56

@Habitatty282

The thing about the joke, he compared her to GI Jane, an absolutely gorgeous, strong, incredible woman. Demi Moore was iconic in that role, so beautiful. Jada could have taken that as a compliment, said 'thankyou' and stroked her head or something like that, empowered all the women out there with alopecia. I have disabilities and the best thing you can do is laugh about them. It was a pretty tame joke.
Yes! Jada was the butt of the joke but so was Demi Moore! How is she feeling? A comparison to her lead to a punch and everybody is shocked at the punch but also shocked at the joke? Demi looked incredible, as do most women with shaved heads. Will Smith acted abhorrently, but anyone saying the joke was wrong is also feeding into the misogyny. Jada looks stunning with a shaved head and was compared to a famously stunning shaved headed woman as part of a joke. It wasn't funny, neither was it offensive. I wonder what Demi Moore thinks.
notanotheroneagain · 28/03/2022 09:57

@jungledoc

Chris did verbal abuse, Will reiterated with physical abuse. You sometimes don't get to choose what form someone is going to come back at you. Maybe next keep a check on yourself.

Men use this excuse for domestic violence all the time!

These are two men, totally different.

To top it off, Will said his mum was abused all the time by his dad, and he always regretted not being able to defend her. He was obviously offended by a man bullying his wife.

gazprom · 28/03/2022 09:57

Also, let's not forget these people were Scientologists and once built a school based on Scientology practice.

Jada was the committed Scientologist although they have since left.

But they live in a bubble of extreme privilege and obviously to be Scientologists have been apart of a high control group cult - so not the most grounded and with a bit of a god complex. All the superior than thou polyamory, weird parenting, etc

Nevertheless, they should be used to the concept of a roast.

LaraDeSalle · 28/03/2022 09:58

Will is a cuck and the whole thing was staged to get attention for the waning interest since it became a load of celebrities preaching woke crap.

gazprom · 28/03/2022 09:59

"To top it off, Will said his mum was abused all the time by his dad, and he always regretted not being able to defend her. He was obviously offended by a man bullying his wife."

And Chris Rock was also violently abused in his childhood, as he states in his autobio - your point being?

jungledoc · 28/03/2022 09:59

These are two men, totally different.

Nope "You sometimes don't get to choose what form someone is going to come back at you" is surely applicable to all sexes.

Mooserp · 28/03/2022 10:00

what disability does she have?

I have alopecia. I don't think it was funny but not shockingly offensive.

jungledoc · 28/03/2022 10:00

"To top it off, Will said his mum was abused all the time by his dad, and he always regretted not being able to defend her. He was obviously offended by a man bullying his wife."

So it's ok he resorted to violence because his dad was violent to his mother?

SueSaid · 28/03/2022 10:01

'Would it be something I would do, no, but in all honesty I can see why he did it'

Well I can't. It takes supreme arrogance to walk up onto a stage and hit someone for 'offending' your wife.

It doesn't matter what Rock said. God, all the offensive crap Gervais has said over the years yet I don't think anyone has attacked him physically have they?

gazprom · 28/03/2022 10:02

maybe there's been a Jada/Chris "entanglement" in the background. Although her preferences have been for her kids' friends ...

Swipe left for the next trending thread