Sean Penn Furious With Oscars and Will Smith Over Slapgate, "Why the F— Did You Just Spit on Yourself"

Over a year after Will Smith and Chris Rock's altercation at the Academy Awards, Sean Penn is sharing his feelings about the ordeal. In a recent interview with Variety, Penn offered his perspective on the "Slapgate" controversy, which occurred in spring 2022 and sent shockwaves throughout the industry and the media world. As Penn told the outlet, he views Smith slapping Rock like the actor "spit on" his career and reputation.

"I don't know Will Smith. I met him once," Penn explained. "He seemed very nice when I met him. He was so f-cking good in King Richard. So why the f-ck did you just spit on yourself and everybody else with this stupid f-cking thing? Why did I go to f-cking jail for what you just did? And you're still sitting there? Why are you guys standing and applauding his worst moment as a person?"

Why Did Will Smith Slap Chris Rock?

The moment at the Oscars, which culminated in Smith walking onstage and slapping Rock in the face, occurred after Rock made a joke about the haircut of Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, which is a result of her years-long battle with the autoimmune disease alopecia. 

"That was a horrific night, as you can imagine," Smith said in a previous interview with Variety. "There's many nuances and complexities to it. But at the end of the day, I just — I lost it, you know? I was going through something that night, you know? Not that that justifies my behavior at all… It was a lot of things. It was the little boy that watched his father beat up. his mother, you know? All of that just bubbled up in that moment. That is not who I want to be."

"I was gone," he said. "That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time. My nephew is nine. He is the sweetest little boy. We came home. He had stayed up late to see his uncle Will and we are sitting in my kitchen, and he is on my lap, and he is holding the Oscar and he is just like, 'Why did you hit that man, Uncle Will?' Damn it. Why are you trying to Oprah me?"

How Did the Oscars Respond to the Will Smith Slap?

In the aftermath, Smith, who went on to win the Best Actor award for his performance in King Richard later that night, resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was later banned from attending the Oscars for the next ten years. While appearing at the 2023 Oscars Nominees Luncheon, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Janet Yang acknowledged that the organization did not handle the ordeal perfectly.

"I'm sure you all remember we experienced an unprecedented event at the Oscars," Yang revealed (via Variety). "What happened onstage was fully unacceptable and the response from our organization was inadequate. We learned from this that the Academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and particularly in times of crisis you must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively for ourselves and for our industry. You should and can expect no less form us going forward."

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