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Resurfaced Video Of Chris Rock Mocking Jada Pinkett Smith At 2016 Oscars Sheds Light On Drama

Gabrielle Coles
Mar. 29, 2022
Resurfaced Video Of Chris Rock Mocking Jada Pinkett Smith At 2016 Oscars Sheds Light On Drama
Kevin Winter/Getty Images

The world cannot stop talking about the 94th Academy Awards ceremony, but the buzz is for all the wrong reasons.

If you somehow missed it, audiences of the annual awards show were shocked when actor Will Smith slapped presenter and comedian Chris Rock, after Rock poked fun at Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

Smith won his first Oscar for Best Actor shortly after the violent outburst, an honorable achievement that was overshadowed by his earlier behavior.

Smith's unexpected reaction came after Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith's shaven head. However, Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia, which is why she sports the hairstyle. It is unknown if Rock was aware of her medical condition, though the actress has publicly discussed it before on her show, Red Table Talk.

Still, people were surprised that the one joke set off Smith, especially since he is known as one of Hollywood's nicer celebrities.

But it didn't take long for internet sleuths to dig up a precious incident between Rock and the Smiths that may suggest there is bad blood between them.

In an attempt to make sense of the drama, Twitter users began circulating a clip of Rock making fun of the couple when he hosted the 2016 Academy Awards:






According to Huffpost, in response to Pinkett Smith boycotting the show for a lack of diversity in the nominees, Rock quipped:

“Jada said she’s not coming. I was like, ‘Isn’t she on a TV show?’"
"Jada’s gonna boycott the Oscars?”
“Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited!”

Rock also made fun of Smith for not being nominated for his performance in the biopic movie Concussion:

"Will was not nominated for ‘Concussion.’ I get it. You get mad."
"It’s not fair that Will was this good and didn’t get nominated. You’re right."
"It’s also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for ‘Wild Wild West.’”

While the clip does add an interesting layer of context, it doesn't excuse Smith for resorting to violence and unprofessionalism during his industries's most important night.

Many celebrities and fans took to Twitter to condemn Smith's reaction - after all, Rock is a comedian and was just doing his job:









The Academy and Richard Williams, the man Smith won the Oscar for portraying in King Richard, also announced that they did not condone Smith's actions:

While there was a lot of shock and disappointment, there were even more jokes about the altercation:









Smith has since issued an apology to Rock on his Instagram:


Let's hope that next time, these celebrties can keep their hands to themselves.