The Los Angeles Police Department was reportedly ready and willing to arrest Will Smith on Sunday (March 27) after he assaulted Chris Rock at the 94th Annual Academy Awards. On Thursday (March 31), Oscars producer Will Packer sat down with ABC News and said officers were on-site ready to charge Smith with battery.
“They were saying, ‘This is battery,'” he says. “[That] was the word they used in that moment. They said, ‘We will go get him. We are prepared. We’re prepared to get him right now. you can press charges. We can arrest him.’ They were laying out the options.
“As they were talking, Chris was being very dismissive of those options. He was like, ‘No, I’m fine.’ He was like, ‘No, no, no,’ even to the point where I said, ‘Rock, let ’em finish.’ We needed to let the officers finish laying out what the options were. They said, ‘Would you like us to take any action?’ And he said, ‘No.'”
Chris Rock’s decision not to press charges prompted the LAPD to issue a statement shortly after the incident took place.
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“LAPD investigative entities are aware of an incident between two individuals during the Academy Awards program,” the statement read. “The incident involved one individual slapping another. The individual involved has declined to file a police report. If the involved party desires a police report at a later date, LAPD will be available to complete an investigative report.”
Smith has since issued a public apology to Rock, his fellow Oscars nominees and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but Rock hasn’t directly addressed what happened — at least not in detail. The legendary comedian briefly touched on the altercation during one of his sold-out comedy shows in Boston.
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In a clip shared by Variety, Rock entered the venue in an all-white suit as the crowd gave him a standing ovation.
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“Whoa, OK!” he said. “Yo, let me do the show!” He continued, “How was your weekend? I don’t have a bunch of shit about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I’m still kind of processing what happened. So, at some point I’ll talk about that shit. And it will be serious and funny.”
That’s when a show attendee yelled, “Fuck Will Smith!” Without missing a beat, he added, “I’m going to tell some jokes. It’s nice to just be out.”
The slapping incident went down as Chris Rock was introducing the Best Documentary category at the 94th Annual Academy Awards. As part of his speech, he made a joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett and her closely shaved haircut.
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“Jada, I love you: ‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it,” Rock said, a reference to 1997 Demi Moore film. Smith initially laughed at the jab but after noticing his wife’s face, he charged the stage and hit Rock across the face.
“Oh, wow,” Rock said as Smith walked off stage. “Wow. Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me.”
Once in his seat, Smith yelled, “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth.” Rock replied, “Wow, dude. It was a ‘G.I. Jane’ joke,” to which Smith yelled again, “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!”
Revisit the clip below.
