Police were ready to arrest Will Smith following the actor slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars, the ceremony’s producer said Thursday.
Producer Will Packer was present alongside Chris Rock when police came to speak to him following the incident. “We’re ready to get him right away, you can file a complaint, we can arrest him,” they told the comedian, Will Packer told ABC television.
According to him, Chris Rock did not want to come to this. When the officers finished explaining the choices available to him and asked “Do you want us to take action one way or another?”, he replied “no,” the producer continued.
As of Sunday evening, the Los Angeles police had indicated that Chris Rock had refused to file a complaint and that no prosecution was initiated at this stage.
It was a joke by Chris Rock regarding the shaved head of his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, who suffered from alopecia – a disease causing severe hair loss, which she revealed to suffer from a few years ago – which sparked the scandal Sunday night.
Will Smith suddenly got on stage and slapped Chris Rock under the dumbfounded gaze of celebrities and viewers.
The 53-year-old artist, who won the Oscar for best actor shortly following the incident for his role in “The Williams Method”, has since issued a public apology to Chris Rock and the Academy of Oscars.
The latter has initiated disciplinary proceedings once morest him and must meet once more on April 18 to decide on possible sanctions.
The Academy Awards have said that Will Smith was asked to leave the Oscars following the slap – without specifying by whom and in what context – but that the actor refused.
In the brief excerpt from his ABC interview, which is due to air in full on Friday, Will Packer said he didn’t speak to Will Smith.
Chris Rock spoke publicly on the subject for the first time on Wednesday evening, shortly following taking the stage for a show in Boston.
“I’m still processing what happened. So at some point I’m going to talk regarding this stuff. And it’s going to be serious and funny,” he said.
