Oscars 2023: How Jimmy Kimmel addressed Will Smith’s slap
Well, Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel got here out swinging when he opened the ninety fifth Academy Awards on Sunday.
The “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host pulled no punches — er, slaps — when he addressed the enormous elephant within the room at this yr’s Oscars.
The elephant being that show-stopping second throughout final yr’s ceremony when “King Richard” star and lead-actor winner Will Smith slapped presenter Chris Rock for making a joke about his spouse, Jada Pinkett Smith, onstage throughout the dwell telecast.
“We want you to feel safe. And most importantly, we want me to feel safe,” Kimmel stated throughout his monologue. “So we have strict policies in place. If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute long speech.”
Kimmel referred to the disaster staff the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences put in to deal with slap-like circumstances, however instantly undercut its goal.
“If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just do what you did last year: nothing. Sit there and do absolutely nothing. Maybe even give the assailant a hug.”
Incidentally, the three-time Oscars host is not any stranger to on-air mishaps. He emceed the 2017 ceremony that culminated within the misguided announcement of “La La Land” because the best-picture winner as an alternative of “Moonlight” due to an envelope mixup. “I knew I would screw this show up, I really did,” the host quipped on the time, however then returned to host the next yr earlier than the ceremony went via a three-year host drought.
He additionally made headlines on the Emmy Awards final September when he performed lifeless for a misguided gag in the course of Quinta Brunson’s acceptance speech. He later apologized to the “Abbott Elementary” star and creator extra formally on his late-night present.
As for the fallout from the slap heard ‘round the world: Smith went on to win the lead actor Academy Award less than an hour after striking Rock. Although he got to keep his Oscar and repeatedly apologized, the “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happyness” star was subsequently banned from the Academy Awards and its related events for 10 years. (That explains why Smith will not be attending or presenting the Oscar for lead actress tonight, as is tradition.)
Meanwhile, Rock initially kept fairly quiet about the incident, only briefly alluding to it in stand-up routines over the last year. But he made his most public remarks last weekend onstage at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore — Pinkett Smith’s hometown — throughout his comedy particular for Netflix, “Selective Outrage.”
Elsewhere within the monologue, Kimmel plugged “Till” and “The Woman King,” Rihanna‘s son and made references to the Oscars gaffe. The comedian also took aim at Nicole Kidman’s AMC Theatres commercials, diabetes drug Ozempic, Irish actors, administrators Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, the dearth of girls administrators being nominated, “Babylon” reportedly shedding $100 million and two actors from “Encino Man” (Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan) being nominated for Oscars.
Times employees author Emily St. Martin contributed to this report.