Whoopi Goldberg, ‘The View’ Hosts React to Will Smith, Chris Rock Slap: ‘He Snapped’ (VIDEO)
Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars won’t soon be forgotten. Following the shocking moment, the hosts of The View have weighed in with their thoughts. And Whoopi Goldberg expressed sympathy for Smith, whom she thinks “snapped” under the pressure of the night.
“I think it was a lot of stuff probably built up,” she said on The View on Monday, March 28, noting that Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have been the butt of jokes for years. “I think he overreacted…I think he had one of those moments where it was like G.D. it, just stop. I get it, not everybody acts the way we would like them to act under pressure. And he snapped.”
“Sometimes you get to a point when you behave badly,” Goldberg added. “I myself have behaved badly on occasion.”
WILL SMITH ASSAULTS CHRIS ROCK OVER JOKE: History was made at Sunday’s Academy Awards, but #TheView co-hosts weigh in on the altercation everyone is talking about and discuss if it overshadowed the moments that should have been celebrated. https://t.co/Ah9MDZwvCD #Oscars pic.twitter.com/kNMoxwHKeh
— The View (@TheView) March 28, 2022
The host then recognized Rock’s composure following the moment.
“I do think it’s wonderful that Chris did not take it to that other place that he could have done,” she said, later noting that the Academy should not make Smith return his Oscar for Best Actor.
“We’re not going to take that Oscar from him,” Goldberg said. “There will be consequences I’m sure, but I don’t think that’s what they’re going to do, particularly because Chris said ‘Listen, I’m not pressing any charges.’”
Rock was a presenter at the 2022 Oscars. He made some jokes before announcing the winner for Best Documentary Feature, and one of them was a jab at Pinkett Smith’s hair. The Red Table Talk host has been open about her experiences with alopecia in the past. Many feel the joke about her appearance was in poor taste. Smith walked on stage following the remark and slapped Rock across the face. At first, the audience and viewers thought it was a joke. But the verbal exchange between Smith and Rock after the actor sat back down made it clear it was a very real moment, indeed.
Goldberg’s fellow The View hosts Joy Behar, Ana Navarro, and Sunny Hostin also gave their takes on the slap.
“I was thinking comedians are in danger everywhere,” Behar said. “They want us to be edgy, to go out there and say what everyone’s thinking…and then they get mad.” She later added: “If you’re upset about something, walk off.”
Navarro said the violence shouldn’t be tolerated.
“Hitting somebody is a crime, a crime of assault,” she said, noting that Rock’s comment about Pinkett Smith “was a lame joke, a joke in very poor taste,” but the joke and the slap were “not equivalent.”
“In context,” Navarro went won, “Jada has alopecia and that’s why she shaved her head. She’s been very public about it, very vulnerable about it, but nothing, nada condones violence at this point. Nada.” And then, Hostin gave her take.
“I was embarrassed for Will, I was horrified for Chris Rock,” she said. “I thought Chris was the one who deserved an apology.”
“I think Will was immature, I think he was childish and he was violent,” she added. “That’s something we tell our children not to do, our children would be suspended from school for that.”
Hostin also said she was surprised Smith wasn’t asked to leave the ceremony after the altercation. Behar ended the Hot Topics segment by comparing Smith and Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Judge Jackson probably wanted to jump up and bitch slap that Ted Cruz but she didn’t,” Behar joked. “She remained professional.”
Smith addressed the slap in his acceptance speech for Best Actor near the end of the Oscars broadcast.
“I want to apologize to the Academy, I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees. This is a beautiful moment and I’m not crying for winning an award, it’s not about winning an award for me, it’s about bring able to shine a light” on the cast, crew, and Williams family, Smith said. “Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.”
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