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The internet was gobsmacked when Will Smith reminded everyone he still won an Oscar after the infamous slap heard around the world at last year's Academy Awards ceremony.
During the 2022 annual televised event, Smith stormed onto the stage after presenter Chris Rock made a joke at the expense of Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and slapped him across the face in front of their Hollywood peers.
Rock had compared Pinkett Smith–who has been open about her alopecia, which causes hair loss–to Demi Moore's shaved head in the 1997 movie, G.I. Jane.
The comment prompted Smith to assault Rock during the live broadcast, leaving millions of viewers shocked and disgusted at the gross breach of etiquette.
Moments later, Smith won the Best Actor award for his portrayal of Richard Willaims—the father of pro tennis legends Serena and Venus–in the movie, King Richard.
Unfortunately, what everyone now refers to as "The Slap," eclipsed his achievement as well as other positive highlights from the evening.
Many fans and others in the industry wondered if Smith would ever recover from the scandal.
Now that it's been nearly a year, Smith endeavored to secure his legacy as an Oscar winner rather than being remembered for the regrettable behavior he has since atoned for by resigning from and being banned from the Academy and purportedly apologizing to Rock.
On Monday, Smith posted a TikTok clip of him stitched to another TikToker who suggested that asking any inanimate object how it feels about you can be life-changing.
“It sounds insane, but it will change your life,” said life coach @missmoneyworking.
The TikToker's video was shown alongside Smith intently listening to her asking:
“Did you know that you can pick any object, look at it, and ask it what it thinks of you?”
She continued:
“So, for example, you can pick up a pen and ask it how it sees you or what it thinks of you, and you will get an answer in your mind from your intuition?”
As if on cue, Smith casually picked up his Oscar statuette that was up until now out of the video frame, looked at it, and turned his focus back towards the camera.
The clip has since amassed over a million views.
Many commenters acknowledged his sense of humor in spite of his tainted reputation.
@willsmith/TikTok
@willsmith/TikTok
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@willsmith/TikTok
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@willsmith/TikTok
@willsmith/TikTok
@willsmith/TikTok
Others thought it was a bold move for the actor.
@willsmith/TikTok
@willsmith/TikTok
@willsmith/TikTok
@willsmith/TikTok
The TikTok video was the first time Smith joked about his Oscar win.
Back in November, he broke his silence about "The Slap" while promoting his new movie Emancipation on The Daily Show in which he told host Trevor Noah his recollection from that night at the Oscars was a "horrific" one.
You can watch the interview here.
Will Smith - “Emancipation” | The Daily Showyoutu.be
He said:
"There’s many nuances and complexities to it."
"But at the end of the day, I just—I lost it, you know?”
Smith described his knee-jerk response to Rock's mockery of his wife as being the result of "a lot of things."
"It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know?"
"All of that just bubbled up in that moment."
"That is not who I want to be.”
In his acceptance speech for the Best Actor win, Smith said through tears, "love will make you do crazy things."
He also thanked the Williams family for allowing Smith to tell their story.
"I want to be an ambassador of that kind of love and care and concern."
The following week, he publicly apologized to Rock in a lengthy social media post, saying in part:
"I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong.“
The 54-year-old will return to the screen and reunite with Martin Lawrence in the recently announced fourth sequel to Bad Boys.
Smith will also star in the sequel to 2007's I Am Legend with Michael B. Jordan.
Some fans speculated that Smith's TikTok video was a PR attempt to win over his fans again.
@willsmith/TikTok
@willsmith/TikTok
Time will tell if Smith is back in the audience's good graces when the box office numbers from those projects are released.