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Today star Brooke Boney defends Will Smith after Oscars slap
The 94th Academy Awards may have featured plenty of heartwarming moments, historic wins and show-stopping outfits, but it was Will Smith’s slap that received the most attention on the film industry’s night of nights.
The King Richard star, who later won the award for Best Actor, shocked viewers on Sunday night when he walked on stage and smacked comedian Chris Rock across the face after he had made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith's alopecia.
Chris was presenting the award for Best Documentary Film when he made a reference to Jada's baldness, saying, “Jada, I love ya. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it!”.
The comment, which was a nod to the 1997 Demi Moore film about a female soldier with a shaved head, was in rather poor taste as Jada was diagnosed with hair-loss condition alopecia in 2018.
After uncomfortable laughter from the audience and a very unimpressed reaction from Jada, Will walked on stage and hit Chris before returning to his seat.
From the crowd, Will could then be heard shouting, “Keep my wife's name out your f***ing mouth!”
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While the 53-year-old father-of-three later apologised for his behaviour, a number of stars have since weighed in and argued about who was in the wrong.
Today star Brooke Boney was one of the people who chose to defend Will’s actions, taking to Twitter to voice her thoughts.
“To hell with black men who put black women down for the benefit of a mostly white audience. As if getting slapped on stage is worse than humiliating someone because they’re disabled,” she tweeted.
After one person replied asking her if she was “actually condoning violence”, the Channel Nine entertainment reporter was quick to clap back.
“Oh spare me. As if I’m condoning violence. Why don’t you channel some of that concern towards the five women who were killed this week if you’re so passionate about preventing violence?”
'I love Chris Rock'
Sunrise host David ‘Kochie’ Koch also spoke about the incident on Tuesday morning with his temporary co-host Monique Wright.
“All the winners are the ones who’ve been ignored in all of this. I had to go searching, I thought, ‘Who actually won?’,” he remarked.
Meanwhile in the US, Nicki Minaj was one of the many celebrities who took to social media to share their opinion.
“I love Chris Rock. I don’t think he would’ve made that joke had he known what Jada recently shared - but between him & the whole team @ the Oscars, you mean to tell me not ONE of y’all heard this woman just share this heartbreaking story? #ComeOnSon," she tweeted.
“You just got to witness in real time what happens in a man’s soul when he looks over to the woman he loves & sees her holding back tears from a ‘little joke’ at her expense. This is what any & every real man feels in that instant. While y’all seeing the joke he’s seeing her pain.
“Imagine what it must feel like to be losing your hair to the point where you have to shave it bald. You think that’s easy to deal with for anyone? You don’t think she’s cried about that many times?”
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