Will Smith's controversial 'justification' after hitting Chris Rock: "Love makes you do crazy things"
"I want to apologize to the Academy and I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees," said Will Smith in his speech without making direct mention of Chris Rock after slapping him.
Sometimes reality surpasses fiction. An example is what happened tonight in full direct from the Oscar gala. During a good part of the gala, attendees, spectators and journalists were not able to be sure if what they had just witnessed was part of the script for the ceremony.
Minutes after slapping Chris Rock, Will Smith picked up the best actor statuette for 'The Williams Method'. In the minutes of him on stage and between tears he tried to justify his violent aggression to Rock's joke about the alopecia of his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith.
"I want to apologize to the Academy and I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees, this is a beautiful moment and I'm not crying to win an award," said the actor as the production focused on his sorrowful face. "Love makes you do crazy things," Smith justified.
"At this time in my life, I am overcome by what God invites me to be and do in the world," he continued before alluding to the protective role he had with his co-stars, the two actresses who played the Williams. "In this business sometimes you have to put up with people insulting you and disrespecting you and you have to smile and say that everything is fine," said the actor. He also mentioned that his partner Denzel Washington had warned him to be careful because "at the highest point is when the devil comes for you."
A speech in which he did not apologize to the attacked and after which the Academy has shown its rejection with a brief tweet in which he has condemned all kinds of violence.
In videos recorded by the attendees and broadcast on social networks, it was possible to see how Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry talked to him and tried to calm him down during a commercial break. Finally Smith apologized. "Life imitates art and I became a crazy father, like my character." And he concluded: "I hope the Academy invites me again." The presenter Amy Schumer knew how to redirect the situation when she came out joking about how long it had taken her to take off the Spiderman costume that she wore in his last appearance: "Did I miss something?".
