Will Smith and Chris Rock have already made up, according to Diddy.
At Sunday’s Oscars, Best Actor winner Smith stormed to the stage and hit presenter Rock over a joke the comedian told about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. While it was highly dramatic, with Smith continuing to yell F-bombs at Rock from his seat, it’s apparently already behind them.
“That’s not a problem. That’s over,” Sean Combs told Page Six at the Vanity Fair after-party. “I can confirm that. It’s all love. They’re brothers.”
Combs also spoke about it in his Instagram Stories.
“I know sh*t is crazy,” Combs said in the video. “You know — sh*t happens sometimes.”
However, even he seemed surprised by how it played out.
“Chris Rock got a chin though,” he said of the King Richard star landing a direct hit on the unsuspecting Rock’s face during the show. “It’s all love” though. “We’re going to move on with love.”
During the telecast, Smith and his wife, the actress and Red Table Talk host, were the target of more than one joke. After a dig from co-host Regina Hall about the couple’s open marriage, Rock took the stage and said Pinkett Smith could star in G.I. Jane 2 with her shaved head.
Whether Rock knew it or not, Pinkett Smith suffers from the hair loss condition alopecia. Last year, she publicly shared her struggle with it and said she’s decided to shave her head as a result.
While Smith initially was laughing at Rock’s joke, Pinkett Smith rolled her eyes.
The camera cut back to Rock, who laughed at his own joke not landing with the Girls Trip star, and as it did Smith stormed the stage and promptly hit a stunned Rock. When the typically affable Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star returned to his seat next to his wife, he then dropped F-bombs at Rock, saying, “Keep my wife’s name out your f**king mouth.”
After the shocking moment, there was a commercial break — during which Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson and Tyler Perry spoke privately to Smith, calming him down — and when the telecast resumed, presenter Diddy played peacemaker.
“I did not know that this year was going to be the most exciting Oscars ever,” Diddy quipped when he took the stage. “Will and Chris, we’re going to solve that like family at the Gold Party, OK?” referring to Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s post-show bash, which features a no-phones policy. “But right now we’re moving on with love.”
Smith and Pinkett Smith both smiled in response and clapped. Not 15 minutes after Smith’s big swing, Smith was back on stage — this time invited — when he picked up his Best Actor award for playing Serena and Venus Williams’s father.
The acceptance speech was clearly emotional for Smith, who won his first Oscar after four nominations. He shed tears onstage as he referenced the Rock drama, speaking of similarities between himself and his character, Richard Williams, saying they were both “fierce defenders” of family.
Smith also apologized to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and his fellow nominees for the dustup. The Academy later tweeted about the incident, saying it “does not condone violence in any form.”
The Academy does not condone violence of any form.
Tonight we are delighted to celebrate our 94th Academy Awards winners, who deserve this moment of recognition from their peers and movie lovers around the world.
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 28, 2022
After his big win, an emotionally shaken up Smith skipped going backstage to the press room — which is rare. Usually winners go backstage and take questions from the press, being sure to note anyone they may have forgotten in their speech, and then have a playful photo session with their Oscar. He didn’t do any of that, leaving Best Supporting Actress Ariana DeBose, Best Supporting Actor Troy Kotsur, Best Actress Jessica Chastain to pose for group photos without him.
Smith did rally for the Vanity Fair party, however. He was all smiles on the red carpet as he arrived flanked by his family, including his wife and three children: Trey, Jaden and Willow Smith. He also posed on the red carpet hamming it up with his Oscar.
At the party, he even gleefully danced to “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It as party-goers clustered around him enjoying every moment. If Rock was at the same party, he skipped the red carpet, so it’s not apparently clear exactly how or when the two spoke to iron out their apparent differences.
Smith will have to address it sooner or later — as will Rock, who presumably has a bruise of some sort from the Ali star’s shocking swing.
