Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press Published Friday, July 29, 2022 12:33 PM EDT Last Updated Friday, July 29, 2022 7:54 PM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) – Will Smith has apologized again to Chris Rock for slapping him during the Oscars telecast in a new video, saying his behavior was “unacceptable” and that he had gotten into contact the comedian to discuss the incident, but was told. Rock wasn’t ready.
“There’s no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave at that time,” Smith said in the less than six-minute video posted online Friday. “I am deeply sorry and I am trying to be remorseful without being ashamed of myself.” To Rock, he said, “I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.”
Smith, seated in a polo shirt and white cap, spoke directly to a camera, answering pre-screened questions about his behavior at the Academy Awards on March 27, when he slapped host Rock after the comedian a reference to Jada Pinkett’s hairstyle. Smith, Smith’s wife.
Smith also apologized to Rock’s family and especially to his mother, Rosalie, who was horrified to see her son hurt, telling US Weekly that “When he slapped Chris, he slapped us everyone. It really slapped me.” Smith also apologized to Tony Rock, Chris’ younger brother.
“I didn’t realize how many people were hurt at the time,” Smith said.
Neither the apology nor the timing impressed the crisis and public relations expert Eric Schiffer, who called it “strange, odd and over-rehearsed”.
“It felt like he was doing a confessional in a locked room in a foreign country to escape the regime,” said Schiffer, president and CEO of Patriarch Equity and president of Reputation Management Consultants. “It’s not the way to get out of the cesspool he got himself into because, once again, it became about him and it’s still about him.”
In the video, Smith also apologized to his family “for the heat he caused us all” and to his fellow Oscar nominees for “stealing and interrupting your moment.” He mentioned Questlove by name; it was the musician-director’s documentary win for “Summer of Soul (…O, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” that was interrupted by the slap. Rock took the stage to present the documentary award.
Smith also said his wife did nothing to encourage his slapping. “I had nothing to do with it anymore,” he said. “I chose on my own.” Pinkett Smith has said she has alopecia areata, a hair loss disorder.
After the altercation, the motion picture academy banned Smith from attending the Oscars or any other academy event for 10 years. Smith apologized to Rock in a statement after the Oscars, saying “I was out of line and I made a mistake.”
“I’m sorry it’s not really enough,” Smith said in the video, adding that he’s hurt because he hasn’t lived up to the fans’ impressions. “Disappointing people is my central trauma.”
Many had speculated that Smith would appear on camera to first discuss the slap on Pinkett Smith’s online series “Red Table Talk,” but she chose to do so in a video post on social media with no follow-up questions no surprise questions.
“It just smacked of a manufactured attempt to be real. And that wasn’t what I was trying to achieve, and it wasn’t persuasive,” Schiffer said. “I wish him the best and hope he finds the right path. This path is really about humility and not ego and self.”