Will Smith breaks months long silence to apologise to Chris Rock for Oscars slap

Publish Date
Saturday, 30 July 2022, 9:48AM

After months of silence, actor Will Smith has finally addressed the infamous moment he slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.

The 53-year-old stormed on stage and struck Rock - who was hosting the awards - after the comedian made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head. She suffers from alopecia.

"Keep my wife's name out of your f****** mouth," he shouted after resuming his seat.

A visibly shell-shocked Rock continued with the ceremony and Smith went on to win the award for Best Actor for his role in King Richard.

That was back in March.

Taking to his Youtube channel, Smith finally broke his silence.

"Over the last few months, I've been doing a lot of thinking and personal work. You asked a lot of fair questions that I wanted to take some time to answer," Smith captioned his video.

He ran through several of those questions, the first of which was: "Why didn't you apologise to Chris in your acceptance speech?"

"I was fogged out by that point. It's all fuzzy," Smith said.

"I've reached out to Chris, and the message that came back is he's not ready to talk, and when he is he will reach out.

"I will say to you Chris, I apologise to you. My behaviour was unacceptable and I'm here whenever you're ready to talk.

Following the fallout from the slap, Smith resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Academy's board of directors banned him from all Oscar-related events for 10 years.

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you