Will Smith has made light of his infamous slap on Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars in a new TikTok video.
On Tuesday (February 21), the movie star posted a clip showing him doing a duet with a woman introducing a new challenge. The challenge in question asked people to pick up an object, look at it and ask how it sees or thinks of them.
The woman claimed people would get an answer back in their minds through their intuition. Will Smith looked intrigued by the challenge and grabbed the Oscar he won at the 2022 ceremony. He looked at the award and seemed to struggle with asking the question before the clip cut off.
The Oscar would probably have lot to say given the events of that night that surround it. Smith accepted the award for Best Actor thanks to his role in the 2021 film King Richard after slapping Chris Rock in the face on stage earlier that night.
The incident occurred while Chris Rock made a joke about Will’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and her alopecia. Will walked on stage and slapped the comedian across his face before going back to his seat and telling Rock to keep Jada’s name out his “muthafucking mouth.”
The TikTok video is the first time Will Smith has addressed the incident with humor. He previously issued a statement last March calling his actions “unacceptable,” while apologized to Chris Rock.
Then, in July, the former Fresh Prince star returned with an earnest apology video in which he denounced his actions and took full accountability, while admitting there was work that needed to be done to fix the mess he made.
Since then, Will Smith has been slowly returning to the spotlight. His latest movie, Emancipation was released in December 2022 and tells the story of a slave named Peter (played by Smith) who embarks on a journey to gain his freedom following the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The film is inspired by the famous 1863 photo of “Whipped Peter,” an enslaved man who joined the Union Army in hopes of being reunited with his family. It was Smith’s first starring role since the slapping incident.
Looking ahead, the 54-year-old is picking up steam with upcoming film releases. Last month, he announced Bad Boys 4 alongside co-star Martin Lawrence via a hilarious Instagram post.
Smith is also set to share the screen with Michael B. Jordan in the sequel to the former’s 2007 post-apocalyptic thriller I Am Legend. Plot details recently surfaced, revealing I Am Legend 2 will follow an alternate ending where Will’s character doesn’t die.
“This will start a few decades later than the first,” the film’s producer and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman told Deadline. “That will be especially visual in New York. I don’t know if they’ll climb up to the Empire State building, but the possibilities are endless.”
She added: “We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film. What Matheson was talking about was that man’s time on the planet as the dominant species had come to an end. That’s a really interesting thing we’re going to get to explore. There will be a little more fidelity to the original text.”
[via]
