UPDATED with additional details: In a just-released video lasting 5 minutes and 44 seconds, Will Smith has broken his silence on the unfortunate “slap heard around the world,” in which he punched the host of Oscar Chris Rock after mocking Smith. wife Jada Pinkett Smith. This was before Smith was awarded the Academy Awards for Best Actor.
The apology was expected, and Smith has done so in the form of answering questions that were raised on the Internet. While it was expected that Smith could choose a high-profile TV interview for his apology to Oprah Winfrey on a late-night talk show, he chose to sit down and calmly answer questions on social media.
The first was directed at Rock, the standup comedian who made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s cropped hair, perhaps not knowing that he suffers from alopecia. When asked why he didn’t apologize to Rock in his acceptance speech, Smith said:
“It was a blur at the time. It’s all a blur. I’ve contacted Chris and the message he got back is that he’s not ready to talk. When he is, he’ll come over. I’ll tell you, Chris, I apologize. The my behavior was unacceptable and i’m here whenever you’re ready to talk i want to apologize to chris’s mom i saw an interview [she] I did, and that was one of the things I didn’t realize. I wasn’t thinking, but how many people were hurt at that time. I want to apologize to Chris’s mother, I want to apologize to Chris’ family, specifically Tony Rock. We had a great relationship. Tony Rock was my man. This is probably beyond repair. I spent the last three months coming back to understand the nuance and complexity of what happened at that time. I won’t try to unpack it all right now, but I can tell you all that there is no part of me that thinks this was the right way to behave at the time. No part of me thinks that this is the optimal way to handle a feeling of disrespect or insult.”
This comes after Deadline revealed that, contrary to published reports, Apple will release Smith’s next star vehicle, the Antoine Fuqua-directed Emancipation , later this year.
Watch the video of Smith’s remarks below.