Will Smith a fait un retour remarqué à la télévision lundi soir en s’exprimant pour la première fois, à l’émission The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, sur la gifle qu’il a assenée à Chris Rock aux Oscars, en mars dernier.
Lorsque l’animateur l’a interrogé sur les mois qui ont suivi l’incident de la gifle, l’acteur de 54 ans a commencé par dire que c’était « une nuit horrible ».
« [Il y a] lots of nuances and complexities, but in the end I lost control,” he said.
He went on to explain that he was going through something that night, but that didn’t justify his behavior. “You ask what I learned? And that is that we just have to be nice to each other,” he added.
Trevor Noah said a friend called him saying he felt like he saw the real Will Smith on stage that night, a claim he disagreed with, believing rather that the actor had just stood for the wrong thing at the wrong time.
“It was a lot of things,” the actor said. He was the little boy who saw his father beat his mother. […] It all just bubbled up then. But that’s not the person I want to be. Will Smith also shed a few tears as he explained that he had a lot of rage that had been bottled up for a long time.
“I had to forgive myself for being human. Believe me, no one hates the fact that I’m human more than me. […] I always wanted to be Superman. I always wanted to step in and save the damsel in distress. I had to be humbled by this and realize that I am an imperfect human being, and I still have the opportunity to go out into the world and contribute to it in a way that fills my heart and hopefully the, help others. »