The Academy is Launching a Formal Investigation into the Will Smith Slap Heard Around the World

Photo Credit: Will Smith/Instagram

Last night Beyonce performed at the 94th Annual Academy Awards. She may have performed virtually and from Compton but does anyone remember? Not that it wasn’t a great performance. I mean she’s Beyonce. But after Will Smith got up and hit Chris Rock with the “Mama said knock you out” slap heard around the world, it’s hard to remember anything else that happened.

Unless you’ve been under a rock (pun intended) for the past 15 hours or so, Chris Rock hosted the Oscars and chose to make a Jada Pinkett-Smith joke to both her and Will’s faces last night. It was at that point that he politely got up, walked on stage and as Rock later said, “Will Smith just slapped the sh** out of me.” And in the event any further clarity was needed, Smith twice said “Keep my wife’s name out of your f*cking mouth.”

For those who didn’t watch the show or missed the joke assumed that Smith did it over the whole fiasco with August Alsina. Y’know, the “entanglement” that Laverne Cox also made a joke about to both of their faces? But no. This was about Rock making a joke about Jada having alopecia causing her to shave her head. He said he couldn’t wait for her to play in the sequel to G.I. Jane.

Now when Cox made her joke, she was said to have gone too far especially since it was said just a couple feet from their face. And this all comes after at this point a few years of jokes made at Will’s expense with little response from him. So to take all of that into context on top of a joke about a health condition, this was the only way this was going to end.

And in came the reactions split anywhere from Chris Rock deserving it to saying it was just a joke to others wanting him charged and locked up for what he did. His son Jaden commented on Twitter, “And That’s How We Do It.” Some people, however felt it was staged. Whatever happened The Academy has announced they are launching a full investigation to get to the bottom of things. A statement was released stating, “The Academy condemns the actions of Mr. Smith at last night’s show. We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our Bylaws, Standards of Conduct and California law.”

The LAPD said in a statement of their own that they were “aware of an incident between two individuals during the Academy Awards program. The incident involved one individual slapping another,” the LAPD said. “The individual involved has declined to file a police report. If the involved party desires a police report at a later date, LAPD will be available to complete an investigative report.”

Legal analyst Aron Solomon said any police officer that witnessed the event in the building could have removed Smith from the stage if he chose to do so. “The immediate question (online) is was it a crime, and statutorily it’s clear it was assault and battery – there was actual physical contact – and that’s a misdemeanor,” says Solomon, chief legal analyst for Esquire Digital in Philadelphia, which helps lawyers grow their practices. “Generally both are punishable by a fine of $2,000 and up to six months in county jail.”

Glitzers, where do you all stand on the Will/Chris Rock debacle?

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