The Oscars had a truly surprising moment onstage tonight, with Will Smith appearing to strike Chris Rock after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith looking like “G.I. Jane 2”
because of her shaven head. Pinkett Smith has spoken openly about having alopecia, a hair loss condition.
After the joke didn't land, Smith came up on stage and literally smacked Rock before walking back off. While Smith's comments to Rock were muted in the U.S. broadcast, he said twice, per witnesses there, “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth!”
Here's the moment Chris Rock made a "G.I. Jane 2" joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, prompting Will Smith to punch him and yell, "Leave my wife’s name out of your f--king mouth." #Oscarspic.twitter.com/kHTZXI6kuL
— Variety (@Variety) March 28, 2022
VIA JAPANESE TELEVISION: The uncensored exchange between Will Smith and Chris Rock pic.twitter.com/j0Z184ZyXa
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 28, 2022
Will Smith just smacked Chris Rock and said “Keep my wife’s name out of your FUCKING mouth!” twice after he joked that Jada looked like “GI Jane 2.”
— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) March 28, 2022
NONE OF THAT WAS BLEEPED IN AUSTRALIA
WILL SMITH SAID “KEEP MY WIFE’S NAME OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MOUTH”
— David Mack (@davidmackau) March 28, 2022
Pinkett Smith opened up about having alopecia on her Instagram. “Look at this line right here,” Pinkett Smith said in a video she shared in December, pointing to her scalp. “Now this is going to be a little bit more difficult for me to hide, so I thought I’d just share it so y’all not asking any questions—but you know, mama’s going to put some rhinestones in there, and I’m going to make me a little crown.”
In her caption, she wrote, “Mama’s gonna have to take it down to the scalp so nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something? Me and this alopecia are going to be friends … period!?”
This is not the first time that Rock has joked about Pinkett Smith at the Oscars. In 2016, Rock was hosting the show and took a jab at Pinkett Smith in his opening monologue. “Jada says she’s not coming. Protesting. I’m like, ‘Ain’t she on a TV show?’” he said, referring to Pinkett-Smith’s decision to boycott the ceremony due to the lack of diversity in nominees, via The Hollywood Reporter. “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited! Oh, that’s not an invitation I would turn down!”
Pinkett Smith responded to that joke to paparazzi while at the airport. “Hey, look, it comes with the territory. We gotta keep it moving,” she said. “We got a lot of stuff we gotta handle, a lot of stuff going on in our world right now. We gotta keep it moving.”