The hottest topic in the country was also the number one “Hot Topic” on The View Monday morning. But not all of the co-hosts agreed about how much blame Will Smith deserved for smacking comedian Chris Rock in the face on live television during the Oscars.
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg, a former Oscar winner and host, reserved her judgment on the incident until the end of the show’s opening segment, ceding the stage to her co-hosts, including Joy Behar, whose first reaction was, “Comedians are in danger everywhere.”
Ana Navarro and Sunny Hostin took the situation even more seriously, calling Smith’s actions what they were.
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“Hitting somebody is a crime, it is the crime of assault on national TV,” Navarro said. As “lame” as Rock’s joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s lack of hair (due to alopecia) might have been, she added, “nothing—nada—zero condones violence in this form.”
“I was embarrassed for Will, I was horrified for Chris Rock,” Hostin added, noting that Smith apologized to the Academy and his fellow nominees, but not the man he hit. “I thought Chris was the one that deserved an apology for taking the high road.”
“I think Will was immature, I think he was childish and he was violent,” she continued. “That’s something we tell our children not to do, our children would be suspended from school for doing something like that.”
Hostin ultimately called Smith’s actions a “show of toxic masculinity,” suggesting that the actor may have “felt emasculated” by the jokes that host Regina Hall made at the expense of his marriage earlier in the show as well. “That is not a show of love,” she said, quoting Smith’s acceptance speech, “this is a show of violence.”
Goldberg meanwhile, appeared to be making some excuses for Smith’s behavior, noting that his anger had obviously “built up” after many years of jokes about his family. “I think he overreacted,” she said. “I get it. Not everybody acts the way we would like them to act under pressure. Some people just snap, and he snapped.”
At the same time, she said it was “remarkable” and “wonderful” that Rock “did not take it to that other place it could have gone,” adding, “I don’t know if they spoke or apologized or not. All I know is sometimes you get to a point and you behave badly. I myself have behaved badly on occasion.”
And when Hostin said she was “surprised” Smith “was not escorted out” and instead received a semi-standing ovation when he won his first Oscar—and wondered aloud if the Academy will let him keep his award, Goldberg pushed back.
“We’re not going to take that Oscar from him,” Goldberg said, apparently speaking for the Academy. “There will be consequences I’m sure, but I don’t think that’s what they’re going to do, particularly because Chris said, ‘Listen, I’m not pressing any charges.’”
