Oscars Producer Says Chris Rock Advocated for Will Smith to Stay at the Oscars

justjared.com:

Will Packer is sharing new details about the 2022 Oscars. The Oscars producer made an appearance on Good Morning America on Friday (April 1), where he discussed the confrontation between Chris Rock and Will Smith. Click inside to read more… Will shared that he initially thought the moment where Will Smith slapped Chris was a bit. “I thought it was part of something that Chris and Will were doing on their own,” he said. “I thought it was a bit.

I wasn’t concerned at all.” He also confirmed that the comedian was “freestyling” when he made the joke about Jada Pinkett Smith and his comments were not scripted. Will said “he had an amazing lineup of jokes that we had.

We had him in the prompter and ultimately he did not get to one joke. He didn’t tell one of the planned jokes.” After the slap happened, Will went up to Chris backstage. “I said did he really hit you?” the producer asked the comedian. “And he looked at me and he goes, ‘Yeah, I just took a punch from Muhammad Ali,’ as only Chris can.

He was immediately in joke mode, but you could tell that he was very much still in shock.” “I knew it was clearly a confrontational moment because of what was happening from Will in the audience, but I still wasn’t sure that he actually struck him,” he continued. “I made that clear, like, Rock, you tell me, whatever you want to do, brother, and he was telling me, I’m fine.” Will said he didn’t speak with the King Richard actor after it happened, but approached Academy leadership at the show to convey that Chris didn’t want him removed.