WATCH: Will Smith talks ‘horrific night’ he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars
Julia Johnson
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Will Smith detailed the “horrific night” that he slapped comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars in the spring in an interview with late-night host Trevor Noah on Monday.
“There’s many nuances and complexities to it, you know, but at the end of the day, I just — I lost it, you know,” he said on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
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In March, Smith struck Rock in the face onstage during the live broadcast of the awards show after the comedian made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald head. Jada’s hairstyle is due to her struggle with alopecia, according to the actress.
Following the incident, Smith resigned from the academy and was banned from the awards show for 10 years. Months later, he issued a video apology to Rock. Rock has reportedly addressed the slap briefly on separate occasions during his comedy tour.
“The m*********** hit me over a b******* joke, the nicest joke I ever told,” he joked during one appearance.
“I was going through something that night, you know? Not that that justifies my behavior at all,” Smith further explained. “I guess the thing that was most painful for me is I took my hard and made it hard for other people — I understood the idea where they say ‘hurt people hurt people.'”
Noah told Smith that he believes the actor is a good person who had a moment of weakness and poor decision-making.
“It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know?” Smith said. “All of that just bubbled up in that moment. That’s not who I want to be.”
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“We just got to be nice to each other,” Smith said, adding that anyone could be going through something at any time.
He also revealed to Noah that he had to explain himself when his young nephew asked him why he hit a man after he returned from the awards show.