One of the Oscars producers has asked the Academy not to expel Will Smith from the awards ceremony on Sunday because “it’s not what Chris Rock wanted”, he says Friday on the show Good Morning America, from NBC.
Posted at 9:46 a.m.
Co-producer of 94and Oscars ceremony, Will Packer told Friday morning on American TV how he had experienced, from behind the scenes, the incident of the slap inflicted by actor Will Smith on comedian Chris Rock.
From the outset, he did not believe it was an attack. “I thought it was part of something Chris and Will were doing on their end. I wasn’t worried at all,” he said. The co-producer also confirmed that Chris Rock’s joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s baldness was unplanned. “I knew he had an incredible list of jokes… he said. We put it in the teleprompter and in the end, he didn’t tell a single joke. »
But the producer quickly realized something was wrong when he heard Will Smith scream. “It was vitriol. I remember thinking, “Oh no, no, no, not like that. Not like this […] I have never felt so immediately overwhelmed as I did then. »
In an excerpt from the interview broadcast on Thursday, Will Packer said that the police had come to talk to him after the incident. “We are ready to get him right away, you can file a complaint, we can arrest him,” they told the comedian, as detailed by Mr. Parker.
But the co-producer did not want to have Will Smith arrested, or even expelled from the ceremony, because Chris Rock himself was not angry after the incident. Will Packer said he was ready to defend what the comedian wanted at that time, that is to say to leave the actor in the room. “I immediately went to see the Academy officials who were there and I said: ‘Chris Rock doesn’t want that (Editor’s note: expel him)”. I said, “Rock made it clear that he didn’t want to escalate a bad situation.” »
Will Smith, 53, won the Academy Award for Best Actor shortly after the incident for his role in King Richard. He has since issued a public apology to Chris Rock and the Academy of Oscars. The latter has initiated disciplinary proceedings against him and must meet again on April 18 to decide on possible sanctions.