Will Smith Responds To 10-Year Academy Ban
The Academy has formally reprimanded Will Smith following his Oscars slap fiasco with veteran comedian Chris Rock.
Following a disciplinary meeting, which West Coast rapper The Game staunchly disapproved of, The Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences reconvened and announced on Friday (April 8), the King Richard actor would be banned from all Academy events, including the Oscars, for 10 years due to his physical assault on Chris Rock at the 94th Oscars awards show.
In a report from Variety, Will Smith, who already voluntarily resigned from The Academy on April 1, will likely get to keep his Best Actor Oscar award for his performance in the biopic based on Serena and Venus Williams’ father Richard Williams, because the Oscars has “no legal authority to claim,” his award as part of disciplinary action. The ban, which goes into effect April 8, will not affect Smith’s eligibility to be nominated or win Oscar awards in the future.
Will Smith also purportedly replied to the decision in a statement in which he wrote, “I accept and respect the Academy’s decision.”
Though Will Smith has previously described his state of mind as “Heartbroken” following the Oscars ceremony, where he walked on stage and open-handedly slapped Chris Rock in response to a joke the comedian told geared toward Jada Pinkett Smith’s bald head, countless celebrities have criticized him for his emotionally charged actions.
During his recent Drink Champs interview, Harlem hitmaker A$AP Rocky expressed his disappointment with Will Smith for how he chose to handle a disagreement with a fellow Black man.
“I’m a fan of Will, Jada, Chris, all of them. They OGs,” Rocky said, as seen in the clip posted to Instagram. “I think it’s unfortunate that, like, he emasculated another Black man in front of all them people like that. But I do think that, like, it’s some built-up shit that probably wasn’t really targeted at Chris Rock. I don’t know. … Like what you said, it seems like it’s more than just a G.I. Jane joke.”
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Wiz Khalifa also attempted to make light of the situation during the premiere event of his Still Rolling Papers documentary, where he warned attendees to refrain from approaching the stage, or else they may face the fate of being shot at for running up on him.
Chris Rock’s brother, Tony Rock also addressed the situation during a recent stand-up gig, seemingly implying he would not have had the same wherewithal as his brother to keep his composure had he been on the Oscars stage that night.
“If you think you going to walk up on this stage, this ain’t the muthafucking Oscars!” Tony Rock said. “And if you walk your ass up here, you ain’t nominated for shit but these muthafucking hands! Oh, we going to pop the rest of the year, n-gga. Every time you see me do a show, pop!”
He continued, “You gonna hit my muthafucking brother because your bitch gave you a side-eye?”
Watch the full clip and catch some of Tony Rock’s Twitter clapbacks below.
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