Comic and former Tonight Present host Jay Leno weighed in on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on the Oscars final month. Leno, who referred to as Smith a “good man,” mentioned that probably the most surprising second to him got here after the slap.
“To me, the factor that’s most annoying wasn’t the slap, as a result of he was form of smirking after he slapped [Rock],” Leno advised the Palm Seaside Each day Information this week. “It was the yelling of the obscenities. Then you definately go, ‘Whoa. What’s occurring right here? That is actual anger.’ “
After the incident, the Academy mentioned it could “comply with an official course of that may take just a few weeks.” Leno was incredulous.
“What are you investigating?” he mentioned. “It needed to be probably the most recorded assault in historical past. I noticed the again of his shoe. I noticed Chris’ ear. There have been so many cameras on this incident. What are you investigating? I do know typically issues are simply what they seem like.”
Quickly after the Academy’s assertion, Smith resigned from his AMPAS membership and the Academy moved up its assembly, the place it banned Smith from its occasions for the subsequent 10 years.
Different comedians additionally rallied round Rock shortly after the incident.
9-time Oscars host Billy Crystal referred to as the Smith-Chris Rock confrontation a “most annoying incident, for certain.” Like Leno, he was clear concerning the nature of the second: “It was an assault.”
Howard Stern, Jim Carrey, Kathy Griffin and others additionally weighed in.
