LOS ANGELES, United States —
Will Smith, who slapped comedian
Chris Rock at the Oscars, said Friday that he was resigning from the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences, saying that he had “betrayed” its trust with conduct
that was “shocking, painful and inexcusable”.
اضافة اعلان
The sudden announcement came late Friday afternoon,
days after the academy had condemned Smith’s actions and opened an inquiry into
the incident.
“I have directly responded to the academy’s
disciplinary hearing notice, and I will fully accept any and all consequences
for my conduct,” he said in a statement Friday.
“I deprived other nominees and winners of their
opportunity to celebrate and be celebrated for their extraordinary work,” he
said in the statement. “I am heartbroken.”
He said that he would “accept any further
consequences the board deems appropriate”.
“Change takes time,” he concluded, “and I am
committed to doing the work to ensure that I never again allow violence to
overtake reason”.
Now that he has resigned, Smith will no longer have
access to academy screenings and events. He will also not be able to vote in
the
Academy Awards. However, he could still be nominated for an award, since
being a member is not a requirement for eligibility.
Smith’s resignation came roughly 12 hours after Will
Packer, the lead producer of the Oscars telecast, spoke publicly about the
episode for the first time.
In an interview with Good Morning America” on ABC,
the network that also broadcasts the
Oscars, Packer said that after Smith had
been asked to leave the ceremony, he urged academy leadership not to
“physically remove” him from the theater in the middle of the live broadcast.
Packer said he had learned from his co-producer,
Shayla Cowan, that there were discussions of plans to “physically remove” Smith
from the venue. So he said he immediately approached academy officials and told
them that he believed Rock did not want to “make a bad situation worse”.
“I was advocating what Rock wanted in that time,
which was not to physically remove Will Smith at that time,” Packer said.
“Because as it has now been explained to me, that was the only option at that
point. It has been explained to me that there was a conversation that I was not
a part of to ask him to voluntarily leave.”
In the interview, Packer also said that Rock’s joke
about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair was unscripted “free-styling”.
“He didn’t tell one of the planned jokes,” he said
of Rock.
Someone close to Rock who asked to speak anonymously
because the academy’s inquiry into the incident is ongoing said that Rock was
never asked directly if he wanted Smith removed. Had he been asked, it was not
clear how Rock would have responded, the person said. Rock was only asked if he
wanted to press charges, and he said that he did not, the person said.
Packer said that, like many viewers at home, he had
originally thought the slap might be part of an unplanned comedic bit, and that
he was not entirely sure until he spoke with Rock backstage that Smith had
actually hit the comedian.
“I just took a punch from Muhammad Ali,” Packer
recalled Rock telling him.
Packer said that
Smith reached out and apologized to him the morning after the Oscars. And he
praised Rock for having kept his cool. “Chris was keeping his head when
everyone else was losing theirs,” he said.
“I’ve never felt so immediately devastated,” Packer
said of the incident.
Asked if, after hearing Smith’s acceptance speech,
he wished that the actor had left the ceremony, Packer said that he did, noting
that Smith had not used his remarks to express real contrition and apologize to
Rock.
“If he wasn’t going to give that speech which made
it truly better, then yes, yes,” Packer said when asked if he wished Smith had
left the ceremony. “Because now you don’t have the optics of somebody who committed
this act, didn’t nail it in terms of a conciliatory acceptance speech in that
moment, who then continued to be in the room.”
Smith did not apologize to Rock until Monday
evening, after the academy had condemned his actions and initiated disciplinary
proceedings against him. Packer’s comments came after days of questions about
why Smith had seemed to face no repercussions for striking a presenter on live
television.
The academy said in a statement earlier this week
that Smith had been asked to leave the awards ceremony following the slap, but
had remained. Then several publications questioned that account, citing
anonymous sources, and reported that Packer had suggested he stay.
Shortly after the ceremony ended Sunday, the Los
Angeles Police Department issued a statement saying that the person who had
been slapped had “declined to file a police report.”
Both on Sunday night and in subsequent interviews
this week, Los Angeles police have maintained that Smith’s slap qualified as
misdemeanor battery under California law — and that as a misdemeanor, officers
cannot take action unless the victim in the case files charges, which Rock did
not do.
Rock made his first public comments about the
incident Wednesday at a comedy show in Boston. “I’m still kind of processing
what happened,” Rock said, while promising to discuss the episode in greater
depth later. “It’ll be serious, it’ll be funny, but I’d love to — I’m going to
tell some jokes.”
After nominating only white actors and actresses for
its awards in 2015, drawing widespread criticism, the academy did it again the
next year — overlooking performances like the one Smith gave in “Concussion”.
At the time, Pinkett Smith was outspoken about what many
people saw as an urgent need for the academy to become more inclusive. Smith
was less pointed in his criticism, but joined her in a boycott of the ceremony,
drawing attention to the
#OscarsSoWhite movement.ag
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