An emotional Will Smith revisited Oscar night with Trevor Noah on Monday by explaining what drove him to slap Chris Rock in front of millions of viewers.
I was gone, dude,” Smith told Noah on The Daily Show. “That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time.” Smith, who was on the Comedy Central show to promote his latest film Emancipation, shared a heartfelt story about coming home from winning his first Academy Award and having to explain his behavior to his 9-year-old nephew. “He’s the sweetest little boy.
He stayed up late to see his Uncle Will. We are sitting in the kitchen, he’s on my lap holding the Oscar, [and he asked] ‘why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?'” “Why you trying to Oprah me?” Smith remembered thinking. “I was like, it was a mess.
I don’t want to go too far into it to give people more to misunderstand.” Earlier in the discussion, Smith tried to explain his behavior by reminding people “you just never know what somebody is going through.” “I was going through something that night,” he said, while turning to address the Daily Show audience. “That doesn’t justify my behavior at all.” “We just gotta be nice to each other, man,” Smith continued, gripping a tissue. “It’s hard.
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