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The Academy Awards said on Wednesday they asked the ‘Williams Method’ actor to leave the awards show following he slapped comedian Chris Rock in public on Sunday. A request that Will Smith ignored. The institution has initiated disciplinary proceedings once morest him.
Will Smith refused to leave the awards ceremony. Oscars following slapping comedian Chris Rock, as the Academy of Oscars had asked him to do, the institution announced on Wednesday March 30.
“While we wish to clarify that Will Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and declined, we also recognize that we might have handled the situation differently,” the Academy of Arts and Sciences wrote in a statement. from movie theaterwhich awards the Oscars.
It was a joke by Chris Rock regarding the shaved head of Jada Pinkett Smith, suffering from alopecia – a disease causing significant hair loss, which she revealed to be suffering from a few years ago – which had triggered the scandal on Sunday evening. Will Smith had suddenly come on stage and had slapped Chris Rock under the dumbfounded eyes of celebrities and viewers.
The 53-year-old artist, rewarded shortly following the incident by the Oscar for best actor for his role in “The Williams Method”, has since presented a public apology to Chris Rock and the Academy of Oscars.
Reacting for the first time publicly, Chris Rock, for his part, declared at the start of a show in Boston that he was “still digesting what happened”. He did not want to file a complaint following his attack.
The threat of “disciplinary action”
The Academy’s Board of Trustees met on Wednesday and “opened disciplinary proceedings once morest Will Smith for violations of Academy policies, which include inappropriate physical contact, abusive or dangerous conduct and compromising the integrity of the Academy,” the statement said.
The institution queen of American cinema gives the actor a period of at least 15 days to “be heard by means of a written response”.
A possible “disciplinary action” once morest him will be discussed at a meeting scheduled for April 18, she adds. It might include the suspension or expulsion of Will Smith from the Academy, which has nearly 10,000 members.
Harvey Weinsteina fallen Hollywood magnate convicted of rape and sexual assault, was expelled from the Academy in the midst of the #MeToo movement in 2017. A few months later, she also expelled director Roman Polanski and actor Bill Cosby.
The leaders of the academy “scandalized”
Many in Hollywood are calling on the organization to punish Will Smith for his act of violence, which they say unfairly eclipsed the night’s other winners.
In a letter to members of the Academy on Wednesday morning, the executives said they were “outraged” and “upset” by the actor’s “unacceptable and harmful behavior”.
“The broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards on Sunday was meant to be a celebration of the many people in our community who have done an incredible job over the past year,” reads the letter, signed by the Academy’s president, David Rubin, and General Manager Dawn Hudson.
Wanda Sykes, one of three presenters who hosted the Oscars gala evening, said the incident literally “sickened” her. “And I’m still a little traumatized,” she said on a talk show hosted by comedian Ellen DeGeneres. A comedian herself, Wanda Sykes felt that Will Smith should never have been allowed to stay in the room and receive his trophy following such a gesture.
With AFP
