(LA) Police were ready to arrest Will Smith after the actor slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars, the ceremony’s producer said Thursday.
Posted at 8:34 p.m.
Producer Will Packer was present alongside Chris Rock when police came to speak to him after the incident. “We are ready to go get him right away, you can file a complaint, we can arrest him,” they told the comedian, Will Packer told ABC television.
According to him, Chris Rock did not want to come to this. When the officers finished explaining the options available to him and asked “Do you want us to act one way or another?” “, he replied” no “, continued the producer.
As of Sunday evening, the Los Angeles police had indicated that Chris Rock had refused to file a complaint and that no prosecution was initiated at this stage.
It was a joke by Chris Rock about the shaved head of his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia – a disease causing severe hair loss, which she revealed to suffer from a few years ago – which sparked the scandal on Sunday evening .
Will Smith suddenly took the stage and slapped Chris Rock under the dumbfounded eyes of celebrities and viewers.
The 53-year-old artist, rewarded shortly after the incident with the Oscar for best actor for his role in The Williams Methodhas 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.
The Academy of Oscars assured that Will Smith had been asked to leave the Oscars after the slap – without specifying however by whom and in what context – but that the actor had refused.
In the brief excerpt from his ABC interview, which is due to air in full on Friday, Will Packer said he didn’t speak to Will Smith.
Chris Rock spoke publicly on the subject for the first time on Wednesday evening, shortly after taking the stage for a show in Boston.
“I’m still digesting what happened. So at some point I’m going to talk about this stuff. And it will be serious and funny,” he said.