Smith won the best actor Oscar for his role in the biographical drama ‘King Richard’
Hollywood star Will Smith ended his dry run at the Oscars lifting the best actor trophy for “King Richard” minutes after he punched comedian Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith.
The punch will go down in the Oscars history as one of the wildest moments after the 2017’s mix up when “La La Land” was mistakenly named as the best picture instead of “Moonlight”.
The incident took place after Rock joked to Smith that he was looking forward to a sequel to “G.I. Jane”, Pinkett-Smith’s movie.
The actor strode up to the stage and slapped Rock.
When he sat down, Smith was heard shouting “keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth”.
The actor later said “love will make you do crazy things”.
“I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people… You got to be able to take abuse, you got to be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business, you got to be able to have people disrespecting you and you’ve got to smile and you’ve got pretend like that’s okay”.
The actor thanked tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams for trusting him with the story of their father.
“I just hope they didn’t see that on TV. I want to say thank you to Venus and Serena and the entire Williams family for trusting me with your story. That’s what I want to do. I want to be an ambassador of that kind of love and care and concern. I want to apologise to the academy. I want to apologise to my all my fellow nominees.
“…Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things,” the actor said by way of explaining his anger at Rock, who had also mocked Pinkett-Smith in his 2016 Oscars monologue as a host.
It was third time lucky for the 53-year-old star who was previously nominated in the same category twice — “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happiness” — but couldn’t go all the way.
In the category, Smith was up against Benedict Cumberbatch of “The Power of the Dog”, Andrew Garfield of “Tick, Tick… Boom!”, Javier Bardem of “Being the Ricardos” and Denzel Washington of The “Tragedy of Macbeth”.
The actor came into Oscar night as a clear favourite, having collected trophies at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Critics’ Choice Awards.
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