Four days have passed since the delivery of oscars 2022, but the slap of Will Smith a Chris Rock continues to generate new news. Amy Schumer and Zoë Kravitz have been some of the stars to join the criticism of Smith, while the Hollywood Academy has condemned the attack and Rock has assured that he’s still processing what happened.
Smith, who a few days ago apologized to Rock and the Academy for the slap, and now sees his career in danger, could have reacted that way to the presenter’s joke about his wife’s alopecia, Jada Pinkett Smith, due to the traumas caused by an abusive childhood, as pointed out by people close to the interpreter (via The Sun).
Friends of the actor assure that he could have reacted with violence after that episode reminded him of his feeling of helplessness at the age of nine, when he witnessed how his father, Willard Carroll Smith, he beat up his mother Caroline without him being able to do anything. Thus, Rock’s joke would have transported Smith to that painful moment in his past.
A source close to Mark Manson, co-writer of Will, The actor’s memoirs, has assured that the star “knows that he is fighting to save his career, his reputation and even his Oscar” after what happened in the early hours of Sunday to Monday. Let us remember that Smith won the award for best leading actor for his performance on Williams method minutes after the incident: “He is terrified by what happened and feels ashamed.”
“He is willing to undergo therapy to solve his childhood problems and will do what he can to make something good out of his momentary lack of judgment,” said that same source: “The joke took him back to his childhood, seeing his mother being attacked by his father. This time, he didn’t sit back.”
he felt like a coward
In his autobiography, Will Smith has admitted to feeling “a coward for failing my mother” on that occasion, a feeling that has accompanied him ever since and that he has been able to treat in therapy for years.
In a recent interview promoting his memoir (via The Sun), The actor assured that “my father was violent with my mother and that was etched in my young mind. I thought: What kind of child stands and lets someone beat his mother without doing anything?”.
“This became the essence of my childhood trauma that shaped my personality and my person, to be the opposite of that. I was never going to be afraid again,” he explained.
Remember that the Hollywood Academy will take disciplinary action for what happened at the ceremony. The punishments that the institution is considering range from the suspension of the Academy, immediate or temporary, or even the withdrawal of the prize that he won on Sunday.
Chris Rock’s first statements after the incident
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