Shortly before he was poised to win his first Academy Award for King Richard, Will Smith made the Oscars theater incredibly uncomfortable—and confused the hell out of the viewers at home—when he appeared to confront presenter Chris Rock on stage for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s lack of hair.
“Jada, I love you,” Rock said, before joking, “G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it!”
He seemed genuinely surprised when Smith stormed the stage and slapped him in the face. Their extended exchange was bleeped by ABC but it was fairly easy to read Smith’s lips when he shouted, “Keep my wife’s name out of your FUCKING mouth!”
In an uncensored version posted to Twitter, Rock said, “Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me.”
“Wow, dude, it was a G.I. Jane joke,” the comic added before Smith repeated his deadly serious plea: “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth!”
“I’m going to,” a visibly unnerved Rock said, shaking his head. He seemed like he wanted to say something back, but ultimately decided to move on and announce the nominees for Best Documentary.
Last December, Pinkett Smith opened up about her struggles with alopecia, revealing that she had decided to shave her head instead of constantly dealing with hair-loss issues. “Mama’s gonna have to take it down to the scalp so nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something,” she posted on Instagram at the time. “Me and this alopecia are going to be friends … period!”
When Sean “Diddy” Combs presented next, he urged Smith and Rock to “solve this like family” at the after party.
