Jimmy Kimmel Reveals His Plan for If Someone Slaps Him During This Year's Oscars
Jimmy Kimmel is hosting the 2023 Oscars this weekend, and the comedian has revealed his plan for if someone attempts to slap him during this show. During a recent conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Kimmell was asked how he might handle a situation like what happened at the previous telecast when Will Smith walked up onstage and slapped Chris Rock. "You mean, if somebody comes up on the stage and slaps me? Well, I size them up, and, if I'm bigger than they are, I beat the s— out of them on television," Kimmel replied.
The late night talk show host then quipped, "And if it's [Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson], I run." In 2022, during the Academy Awards ceremony, Smith took issue with a G.I. Jane joke that host Rock made about the Independence Day star's wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith. After leaving his seat, Smith approached Rock on the stage, and hit him with a hard open-hand slap. Upon returning to his seat, Smith yelled to Rock, "Keep my wife's name out of your f—ing mouth."
Following the violent outburst, Smith took to social media to issue an apology. "Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada's medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally," he wrote on Instagram, insinuating that the joke was specifically bout Pinkett-Smith's alopecia condition. "I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness."
In a new Netflix comedy special, Selective Outrage, Rock tackled the subject, but from a very unique perspective. While he had some jokes about Smith's size and the hit itself, the comedian seemed to focus more on what he perceived as the root issue behind why the actor swung at him. "Everybody knows that had nothing to do with me. I didn't have any entanglements," Rock said, referencing Pinkett-Smith's admission that she had an affair with August Alsina, who was a friend of her son, Jaden.
"His wife was f—ing her son's friend," Rock boldly reminded the audience. "Now, I normally would not talk about this s—, But for some reason, these n—as put that s— on the internet. I have no idea why two people that talented would do something that low-down." He continued, "We've all been cheated on, none of us have ever been interviewed by the person who cheated on us. Why the f— would you do that s—? She hurt him way more than I did... Everybody called him a b—, and who'd he hit? Me!" Selective Outrage is now streaming on Netflix.