Will Smith’s onstage Oscar slapping of Chris Rock continues to reverberate with late-night hosts continuing to weigh in. Smith eventually did apologize to Chris Rock, but the conversation isn’t over yet. The Academy has (again, eventually) decided to open an investigation of sorts, and there’s little debate about how Rock’s joke (describing Jada Pinkett, who struggles with alopecia, as “GI Jane“) was awful, although Smith took his reaction into the physical realm (yet Rock declined to press charges) in a big way.
One other actor who has experience in the hothead realm, Alec Baldwin, is now weighing in. Baldwin — who has famously punched and scuffled with numerous photographers (and allegedly someone who, uh, wanted the same parking spot as Alec) in his days — believes that Smith went too far. And that’s… something.
“I am not reading much about how, or even if, the producers attended to Chris,” Alec tweeted (on his private account and cut-pasted to Instagram) But I love you, @ChrisRock. And I’m sorry the Oscars turned into the Jerry Springer show.”
When Alec thinks that the situation got out of hand, physically, well, you get the drift.
Meanwhile, Diddy has insisted that it’s already bygones and “love” between Will and Chris, who are “brothers.” And people will likely continue to focus on the history of relevant jokes from Rock (in 2016, he hosted the Oscars and delivered some zingers at the couple), but words are still words, and smacks are obviously a different thing. In other words, this conversation isn’t over yet.
